Insert the Best Of Both Worlds Here
by Ulera
Summary: An ACMSES fic, a massive amount of Stuish readings have been detected in the Metroid fandom, and it's up to three separate teams of agents to take them down, but something doesn't seem right...
1. Dark Reflections

Deraj sat drumming his fingers together contemplatively. It had all come up to this moment, the trap was set, and it was only a matter of time. He turned his chair to face a TV monitor, watching surveillance footage of Jared's last mission, up until the point the Borg Cube exploded.

"Oh Jared, even then you did not truly grasp the danger you were in, or as Professor Moriarty put it..." he said scooping up a copy of _The Adventure Of The Final Problem_.

"'This is not danger,' said he. 'It is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.'" Deraj read aloud.

"You and your theatrics," grumbled Eolhc, "you don't even know if this plan will _work_!"

"Oh but Eolhc, I do! I must admit my own carelessness in letting others perform my grunt work, but the Sue Storm prototype will be tested before we see the light of another day. And when it has we can begin work on the full scale device that will single handedly unravel the very seams of the Anti-Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society, bringing us one step closer to universal perfection. Now go get the others, it is time for us to begin."

"Just try not to get us nuked this time, if Neb's tomb didn't have a bunker..."

* * *

Samus Aran was running through the great desert known as the Agon Wastes, she had crashed landed on the planet not too long ago while on commission to investigate the disappearance of a Galactic Federation battle cruiser. What she hadn't counted on however, was being stuck in the middle of an interdimensional war between the Luminoth -the native race on the planet Aether, and the Ing, evil creatures that came from a darkened version of Aether that existed in a parallel universe. To make matters even worse, one cycle after her arrival she had been attacked by another bounty hunter, one that spoke with an unfamiliar accent. She had been lucky to escape their last encounter, but her shields and ammunition were dangerously low.

She rounded a bend in the desert pass and began to sprint across the half-pipe that led to the relative safety of the great temple when she spotted a blip due south east on her radar,closing at an incredible rate. She stopped running and turned around, the blip grew closer as she raised her arm cannon and began to charge her power beam.

A great mechanical dragon, known to Samus as Meta Ridley flew into view, freshly resurrected by Space Pirate scientists for the umpteenth time. Samus targeted the dragon and prepared to fire, then she noticed the rider on it's back.

"Ullo' Sueprised tu see me? De Space Pirates 'ave 'ired me tu keel you, so I 'ope you don't take thees personally," said Cassandra, her speech obviously not impaired through the helmet of her very form fitting Chozo power suit.

Samus quickly switched her target from Meta Ridley to the Sue and fired the power shot she'd been charging. It collided with a strange green barrier that seemed to appear from nowhere, the barrier stopped the shot from progressing but sent a shower of sparks streaking from the underside of the shield towards the Sue, she swore as they scorched her armor.

"O'kay, so we shall embrace brevity in dees encounter," she said as she coaxed her steed into diving after Samus. The bounty hunter managed to make an ungraceful leap to safety at the last second and score a couple of charged shots on Meta Ridley.

The dragon let out a scream of pain and anger as it maneuvered to make a counter-attack. But Cassandra forced it to veer right and gain altitude the second before impact. Keeping one hand on Ridley's neck she twisted her body around so that her arm cannon was aiming at Samus. Opening fire, she sent a volley of missiles and beam shots at the heroine, switching between weapons at an impossible speed, all the while her perfect aim compensating for every evasive maneuver her foe made.

As the attacks found their mark warning lights began to make their way across Samus' visor. Her remaining energy was depleting rapidly as it emptied into her power suits failing shields in a desperate attempt to keep them functional. She quickly realized that her attempts at evasion were getting her nowhere as the alien bounty hunter seemed quite incapable of missing her mark.

Samus quickly worked the controls of her arm cannon as she took aim at her adversary. The end of the weapon folded outward as the internal beam projectors shut down and retracted to make room for the missile launching mechanisms. Samus took aim and proceeded to multi-lock the Sue with her missile spreader. Five missiles launched from her arm cannon simultaneously only to be shot down by the Sue at almost the instant before they found their mark. Samus fired one more missile volley when her heads up display informed her she was out of ammunition. She turned to run and was about to activate her Morph Ball form when she was struck by a Super Missile.

The explosion blew her forward and sent her tumbling across the ground, her visor cracking and and her vision blurring as her head slammed into a rock. She bounced across the ground several more times before rolling to a stop against a lone boulder. She tried to get back up but found that her suit's motivator unit had been destroyed. One-by-one she felt her suits systems began to shut down as her energy reserves ran dry...

"WARNING: LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE IMMINENT!" began to blink across her visor in dim red lights.

Meta Ridley landed in the clearing in front of her a ways. All Samus could do was stare at the creature as it turned to face her and open it's mouth. The last thing Samus ever remembered seeing was the approaching fireball.

* * *

An army of small green plastic army men began to work their way across the floor of the Library Arcanium, tiny motivators moved their tiny limbs as they moved steadily onward through the commons area, through the kitchen, through the music room until... A great pedestal of chocolate stood before them. The head scout looked around the room, then turned to the captain.

"Captain Crunch sir, there appears to be a short man with a ping pong paddle skewered to the wall with a giant plunger. Do we have permission to engage?"

"Ho Ho Ho, that's a negative solider, we are here on an extraction mission, we do not have orders to initiate a preemptive strike. But be wary, the giant plunger may not be the only trap in the room."

Tyler couldn't believe his eyes. Could he really be seeing a small battalion of small plastic army men marching across the floor? Drake was not going to believe this.

Jared was sitting in Chevila's cab, using a CB radio built into the dash to communicate with the troops.

"Admiral Jared, we are in approach of the sweets, no sign of booby traps so far, we are sending scouts ahead of us to check for landmines."

_Landmines?_ Jared thought, well they were designed to behave like real solders, so it could be expected. Jared turned to the plastic figure on his dashboard.

"General Idea, order your men to bring in the Apache helicopter with grapples to airlift the chocolate off the platform."

The general was just about to relay the order when a transmission crackled over the radio.

"Admiral, we appear to be under attack by a giant stick monster! Major Detail, Colonel O'Korn and Commander Follower have already fallen to it's claws, We need reinforcements... AAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!"

Then a new voice sounded over the radio. "Bad puns and abundant military cliches! Just as I was getting hungry!"

Jared was about to scoop up the general when he noticed he was already rolling out of the hanger in a miniature Sherman tank. Jared stopped the tank with his foot and pulled the general out of it.

"While I appreciate your gusto, I don't think your quite up to Shirley's level little buddy." Jared said.

"Nonsense, why back in Normandy I single handedly strangled 3,000 Nazi's with my bare hands!"

"That seems unlikely."

"That's what the first 2,500 said!"

Jared sighed. "I'm gonna have to find out what it is about you little guys that makes you so delusional."

He stuffed the general in his pocket and took off down the hall to the scene of the battle.

When he arrived the scene was one of absolute carnage. Dead and wounded soldiers lay everywhere, being carried off by tiny medics on stretchers made of Kleenex's and tooth picks, tiny tanks were firing rockets at the Cliche stick which only served to further enrage her, that coupled with the attack helicopter flying just out of her reach served to make her really mad. She scooped up one of the tanks and managed to score a direct hit by throwing it at the helicopter, sending both plummeting to their doom on the ground 8 feet below.

Tyler had somehow managed to get a hand free from behind the giant plunger and was snacking on a bag of popcorn, clearly enjoying the spectacle.

"Sweet John Wayne!" Jared yelled.

"Just like in 'Nam..." said General Idea.

Jared immediately began setting toy troop transports on the ground. "General retreat men! Fall back! Fall back!"

The troops began to slowly make their way to the trucks as Jared held Shirley at bay by shouting various cliches and keeping bookshelves between them. Once the trucks were underway and en route back to Jared's lab, Jared ran over to Tyler and yanked the plunger free. He then swung it as a makeshift baseball bat to try to make Shirley back off, but she just bit it clean in two. She was just about to lunge at Jared when a whole fleet of toy Blackhawk helicopters flew out of the ventilation and opened fire on the Cliche Stick, distracting her. Jared muttered his thanks, gave a brief salute and he and Tyler took off running, Shirley managed to take out two retreating helicopters by throwing books before just before they could retreat into the ventilation.

"Come back here you little plastic sissies!" He heard Shirley yell.

"What were those things?" Tyler asked.

"Those were the Little Plastic Green Beret. I'll be using them as scouts when I go on missions once I get the bugs worked out, but as you can see they can be useful for making diversions too. I was going to observe their resourcefulness by having them 'extract' Adrian's sweets when Shirley showed up and began tearing them apart"

"What's that about Shirley?" Ben asked, joining the two agents as they sprinted by him. "I assume whatever it is involves the reason you're randomly running throughout the library."

And that's when they all ran into Chloe.

"Watch where your going!" She shouted as she tried to drag herself out from beneath the pile of bodies.

"Hello Chloe," Ben said grinning.

"Ben! Get your arm off of my shoulder!" She yelled at him.

"I'd love to, but Tyler is pinning it there."

"Don't look at me, Jared's basically sprawled across my back, I can't move"

"I like chaos." Jared said, swiping some of Tyler's popcorn from the middle of the pile.

"What's going on here?" Tash said as she entered the room.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Jared said, disentangling from the pileup.

"Well, multiple Mary Sues have been spotted in the Metroid Prime fandom, I'm assembling some teams, can the four of you go?" Tash asked.

"Sure, but first let me go rescue my toy army from the claws of a homicidal piece of wood..."

Tash shrugged, most of Jared's requests didn't make sense, she had just learned not to ask.

* * *

The plan seemed fairly straight forward, three Mary Sues were spaced evenly throughout the second game of the Metroid Prime series, one in the Agon Wastes, one on the Temple Grounds and another located at Torvus Bog on the surface of Dark Aether, which presented a problem.

Ben raised his hand.

"Excuse me, but the atmosphere of Dark Aether is both toxic and corrosive. How are we going to send a team in there without killing them?" he asked.

Tash answered. "Chloe and Aster are the only two who will be going to Dark Aether, Aster's ability to change the composition of the air around her will negate the harmful effects of the atmosphere, and Chloe will be taking Chevila who will no doubt canonize into a Chozo power suit capable of withstanding the atmosphere."

"Careful with her Chloe, she's still hurtin' from her introduction with the wall of Doug's lab." Jared called at his partner from across the briefing room.

"As for you Jared, the Sue in the temple grounds is only a level four. Think you can handle her by yourself?" said Tash.

"No worries,"

"Okay, then Ben, Drake and Tyler, you three will be going after the level six sue in the Agon Wastes. Keep in mind that the wastes are a desert, you should bring plenty of water with you. Now that everybody knows where they're going, get to it and good luck."

"Be careful, Ben," said Lily as she gave him a hug.

"Get a room you two," Drake muttered as he scooped up his Plothole generator on his way out of the room.

* * *

Jared entered the fandom through a plothole in the cockpit of the disabled Galactic Federation ship called the Tyr. The crew had been in the middle of repairs when a mass of creatures called Dark Splinters had killed them all.

Jared walked over to where the commander had fallen and picked up his laser rifle, normally he was content with just toting his Boomhammer, but the enemies in this fandom were not creatures one should take lightly, and Jared felt a little more comfortable with the futuristic weapon in his possession.

Jared walked out of the crashed ship and turned towards the Great Temple, a large structure that housed the planetary energy of Aether. He figured if he were a Sue, that's where he would be, so that's where he would look first, he walked down the landing ramp a took his first step onto the planet Aether.

Several tiny plotholes opened behind him and several troop transport trucks and helicopters began to appear out of them.

Jared turned to address them. "Men, your job is to search the area around me, report any enemy sightings to General Idea or myself immediately, do not engage unless you are cornered. Do you understand?"

One of the solders raised his hand "You wanted us to report all enemy sightings immediately right?"

Jared looked at the figure. "Yes, why?"

"Because I believe there is a swarm of the creatures this fandom calls 'Dark Splinters' approaching from the north sir"

Jared whipped around. Sure enough a swarm of at least 50 of the giant flightless insects were fast approaching. Troops began running out of the transports and throwing each other tiny plastic munitions.

"Oh crap," was all Jared managed to say.

* * *

Ben, Shirley, Tyler and Drake stepped through a plothole and the first thing they noticed upon entry to the fandom was that the area they were in was enclosed and full of mining machinery.

"We must be inside the Space Pirates' mining facility," Ben said, "which is good, I'd much rather be in the cool mine then on the hot surface."

Tyler and Drake looked at each other.

"Uh, I don't think either of us should be in charge of the navigating, considering what happened last time me and Tyler dug a tunnel." Drake said, tugging at the bandage on his nose.

"O-kay, lets just go this way then," said Ben, picking a direction more or less at random and beginning to walk. The other three people turned to follow him when a Space Pirate proximity detector went off, sending up red lights and sirens all around them.

"On second thought, the other way has its own charms," Ben said as Pirate Commandos started storming into the room.

* * *

Aster stepped through her plothole, completely alone.

"Nani? Where is Chloe-chan?" She asked right as a certain 1986 Chevy burst through a plothole right by her at 88 MPH, canonizing instantly. Chloe tumbled to a halt several yards away, she was laughing when Aster ran up to her.

"That was so much fun! I almost had to run the whole length of the runway just to get up to 88 MPH! Jared would have killed me if I wrecked the other wall of his lab, I wonder what's behind that one anyway."

Chevila had canonized into a navy-blue variant of the Light Suit, the only power suit in the game that can completely nullify the effects of Dark Aether's atmosphere. Chloe, who was right handed was having to carry her sword in her left hand seeing as the right was now on the inside of the power suit's arm cannon.

Aster helped her up and the two looked around them. All their environment was was toxic purple swamp water and hideous looking black trees as far as they could see, The two began to walk on metal bridge that crossed the swamps middle, briefly pausing to admire a Luminoth light crystal as it projected its bubble shaped shield that forced back the harmful oxygen of this planet.

"That bubble serves as a safe haven Aster," Chloe explained, pointing. "It protects it's occupants from the hostile environment and can actually kill the Ing if you pump enough light energy into it."

"What does an Ing look like anyway?" Aster asked. Then shadows began moving all over the walls, crawling over every surface at high speed, before settling into strategic positions around the two agents, materializing into giant black grasshopper like creatures with scythe-like claws, single eyes gazing at the two.

"That..."

* * *

Jared emptied his only ammo clip into the swarm as they drew nearer, killing three of them, then for lack of anything better to do flung the weapon harmlessly into the nearest enemy. The LPGB helicopters made strafing runs into the creatures midst. The tiny bullets weren't capable of penetrating the Splinters skin, but if they managed to score a hit on the eye they could temporarily blind the creatures and stall their advance.

"Epicenter!" Jared yelled, punching the ground. A tidal wave of earth overturned on itself and smothered the nearest wave of attackers, Jared felt proud of himself until he remembered that Splinters were burrowing insects, as the swarm quickly dug itself out from beneath the earth and began to close in on their prey with a new found anger. Jared turned to General Idea.

"We have to hit them harder, they'll over run us in moments if we don't do something!"

The General saluted Jared, "We got that covered sir, we've sent in a request for reinforcements!"

"Really now?" Jared said as he smashed a Splinter that had run ahead of the rest of the swarm with his Boomhammer.

"It's really a shame how fast you get in over your head you know." Doug said as he entered the fandom, he aimed a rocket launcher and fired, wiping out 15 of the giant insects.

"Ah Doug, glad you could join me, I see you've come to make sure I'm not torn apart by Ing possessed insects."

Doug laughed. "Actually I've come to make sure you live long enough to fix my wall, no offense."

"None taken. Tremor!" Jared blew up the ground underneath two Splinters, he was rewarded as by a satisfying crunch as there exoskeletons broke. "I don't suppose you have something that can take care of these guys?" Jared and Doug began to back up, half of Jared's army men lay broken on the entry ramp, Jared began to finger his plothole generator.

"As a matter of fact I do, put this on." Doug tossed Jared a gas mask, Jared looked confused, he just got the mask on when Doug pulled out a small canister like grenade.

"Fangirl strength insecticide, I found it in your lab." Doug said pulling the pin.

"Hey, you can't just take stuff out of my lab!"

"Hey, you did knock my wall down..."

Doug threw the grenade directly into a leaping Splinter, knocking it back, it exploded with a violent force that blew the two agents back into the cockpit. When Jared regained his senses he noticed that the whole area was now covered in an ambient green fog. Dead Splinters lay everywhere, Doug helped him up.

"Well men, we got them! Good work!" Yelled General Idea, who was now missing an arm.

"General, round up your wounded and take them back to my lab, I'll work on fixing you up once this mission is over." Jared said through the gas mask.

Helicopters and trucks immediately began to lift up troops and disappear through plotholes, Doug turned to Jared.

"Got any ideas where this Stu is?"

"I say we go check out the temple first, there's nothing else in this whole area a Stu would be interested in."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"Nothing, Captain Crunch! Get some troops into a helicopter and scout ahead, contact me via radio if you see anything."

And with that Jared, Doug and the remains of the LPGB made there way towards the great Luminoth Temple...

* * *

"Don't mess with nukes!" cried Ben, hand outstretched as a warhead detonated behind several pirate commandos. Space Pirates had never encountered a nuke before, much less one that appeared from nowhere. Ben followed up the attack by a long winded continuous note on Bahamut, the beam striking the nearest Pirate.

The Space Pirates drew their laser weaponry and began firing heavy rounds of suppressive fire, forcing the three agents to take shelter an a small outcropping of rocks.

"Fire in the hole!" Shouted Tyler as he flung a grenade he had pulled out of his pouch over the top of one of the rocks. The explosive severely damaged the nearest commandos armor, just about incapacitating him, but still managed to get back up and shout something in an alien language.

"What'd he say?" Drake asked as he beat down a group of Space Pirates that had tried to sneak around to the back of the group.

"He said 'So you like grenades do you?'" Ben answered, tuning Bahamut. His E string was flat...

"You speak Space Pirate?" Said Tyler awed.

"Well I'm not fluent, but I can speak a couple common phrases, you'd be surprised how often 'grenade' pops up in pirate talk,"

The Agents looked at him.

"Hey! I play alot of Metroid." He said as a pirate EMP grenade was hurled into their midst.

"Oh muffins," said Tyler as the grenade went off.

* * *

Chloe was having a very difficult time fighting off the Ing warriors, her Power Suit's weight made it difficult to move around very fast, and her left handed swordsmanship was mediocre at best.

An Ing scored a direct hit to her chest with it's claws, throwing her back and weakening her shields. She had access to an entire arsenal of futuristic weaponry in her arm cannon but absolutely no idea how to use it, she fiddled with levers and switches but couldn't actually figure out how to get the thing to shoot.

Aster on the other hand. was moping the floor with the Ing, freezing them in blocks of ice and blowing them into the toxic waters of the Torvas bog. She was just about to fly over and assist Chloe when she was blindsided by a translucent green barrier, causing her to tumble ungracefully to the ground.

"'Ello Chloe, I see you brought a friend to dee party dees time. Aster, ees et not?" Said Cassandra as she dropped down from the sky off of Meta Ridley's back. The Ing all retreated from her presence, shifting into their shadow forms and fleeing.

Chloe pointed her arm cannon at the Sue and began button mashing for all she was worth. Out of sheer luck she got it to switch into Dark Cannon mode and shot a single burst of Dark ammunition at the Sue, who simply Slinked out of the way of the accidental projectile.

"Oh, does dee societee agent not know 'ow to operate dee weaponry in her suit? I woold be most willeng to show you."

Cassandra's own arm cannon switched to Annihilator mode and began fusing light and dark energy together. Her visor locked onto Chloe, she raised her weapon and unleashed the blast as a sonic boom missile combo. The powerful blast blew Chloe off of her feat and off the bridge entirely, depleting her shields way more than it should have. causing her to fall into the toxic swamp of the bog.

The acidity of the water dissolved her sword completely as soon as she broke the surface. Chevila's gravity booster activated automatically, allowing her to move through the liquid normally. She was slightly alarmed when her active weapons display began to shrink.

_Warning: Canonization device has been reduced to 96% normal function. Screw Attack and Annihilator Beam have been taken offline in order to maintain stable canonization. Further functionality will be reduced if more damage is taken._

_Thankfully the Light suit is impervious to the effects of the water, but if it goes offline I'll be in a world of trouble, _she thought to herself.

Then she heard Cassandra scream as Aster threw her into the swamp with a gale force blast of wind. Aster broke the surface a second later in pursuit of her foe...

* * *

Drake's armor was sporting a fresh dent courtesy of the grenade he had covered, and he was not happy about it.

"Storm Punch!" He yelled as he decked a Space Pirate, the armor around it's neck shattered as the pirates head snapped back, killing him instantly.

Drake was not one to waste any valuable resources and quickly lifted pirates corpse with his left hand and proceeded to use it as a shield, using right hand to work the controls on the pirate's own blaster and gunned down two pirates as they ran into the room.

Tyler zapped a couple with a magic bolts and followed up with an axle staff jab between the eyes of another pirate, knocking him out.

"My coffee makers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!" Ben cried, forcing the remaining pirate back through the door.

"Don't mess with nukes!" He yelled, nuking the door itself causing a cave-in in the threshold.

"Well that takes care of the cannon fodder." Drake said as he tossed the corpse of the pirate aside, "So shall we try the other direction?"

The group turned around and made their way towards the opposing door, it opened when they were 10 feet away, revealing an elevator shaft.

"Hi Tyler, did you miss me?" Asked Relyt as he jumped into the room, staff drawn. Tyler reached into his pouch, pulled out a kitchen sink and flung it at him.

Relyt nimbly leapt aside.

"Ha, did you expect that to work on me a second time?"

"No, that's why I brought this."

"What?" Relyt asked, then Tyler hit him with a toilet.

"I don't even want to know where you got that," muttered Drake.

He and were about to turn and help when Ekard appeared from behind them and tackled Drake, managing to score a good number of sucker punches before Drake managed flipped over and kicked him in the stomach.

Ekard flipped in the air and turned to face his nemesis. "Drought Kick!" He yelled as he leapt at Drake. Drake sidestepped, grabbed in Ekard mid-leap and flung him into the ground.

Ben turned to face the elevator and raised Bahamut. "Well Neb, I suppose it's just you and me."

There was no motion from inside the elevator, Ben relaxed his stance.

"Oh yeah, that's right..."

Then he felt a sharp pain in his right cheek as a razor sharp knife was raked across it.

Ben clapped his hand to his cheek, when he pulled it away he could clearly see that he that the strike had drawn blood.

A voice came from the shadows. "I might not be your late adversary, but will I do?" Asked Eolhc as she stepped out into the open.

Ben winced. "I'm flattered, but I already have a girlfriend."

Shirley raised her claws, "Nobody cuts my punching bag!" She yelled as she leapt at Eolhc.

* * *

A small Apache helicopter made it's way towards the temple as it flew over Aether's war-torn landscape, with Jared following a short way behind it. The going was far too easy for Jared's liking, it was almost as if someone was wanting him to reach the temple. He picked up his portable radio.

"Calling Captain Crunch, calling Captain Crunch, report."

"No sign of hostiles sir, we are in approach of the temple now, their appears to be a large antenna like structure attatched to the roof, it does not appear to be of Luminoth design. Do we have permission to investigate?"

"That's a negative, hold your position and await further orders."

_That's funny, I don't remember any antennas in this game, lets see what my new invention makes of it_, Jared thought as he pulled a tiny digital camera out of his pocket. He pointed it at the distant temple and set the zoom to max, sure enough there was an antenna sticking out of the roof. Then Jared hit the shutter button, the camera's screen immediately locked up and began shimmering, the words "analyzing, please wait." appeared in the middle of the screen, when the picture came back into focus the antenna was missing, with a pink outline indicating where it had been before it was edited out. That's when he was startled by a sudden booming voice filling the area.

"Interesting toy you have there. What do you call it?" Doug asked.

"The Canon Camera, it uses mathematical probability and trends in the fandom's plotline to generator pictures of what a fandom should look like if they were free from non canon influence, subtle things can escape it however if they are close enough to canon to escape the sensors notice." Jared called out.

"Interesting," said a man who might as well have been Jared's messy haired twin dressed in cargo pants and a brown leather jacket stepped out from the shadows.

"Who are you?" Jared asked.

"I am Deraj, tech specialist of the Pro-Cliche and Mary Sue Protection Society, I believe you can be of great service to our cause."

"Why would I want to help you?" Jared asked, raising his Boomhammer.

"What makes you think I'm giving you a choice?" Deraj said as he gripped a shining crowbar he slipped out of his jacket sleeve and lowered a weird looking visor over his eyes.

Without even a word of warning the man charged at Jared, raising the crowbar above his head.

"Flashbar!" He shouted as he brought it down.

"Boomhammer!" Jared yelled as he countered with his own weapon.

There was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder... Deraj skidded back several feet, completely unharmed. Jared just dropped his hammer and clapped a hand over his eyes, all he could see was flashing dots and a white blur.

"Careful Doug! He's using some kind of light based weaponry! Don't look at it, it will blind you!" Jared yelled, feeling around for his dropped weapon.

Doug drew his dagger, morphed it into sword form and lunged at Deraj, Deraj sidestepped, although not fast enough to avoid Doug cutting deeply into his arm through his jacket.

"You'll pay for that! Flash bar!" Deraj slammed his crowbar into the back of Doug's knee, Doug's forward momentum cushioned the blow however and he was able to twist around and deliver another cut to Deraj's leg.

"Not bad!" Deraj said as he took a step back and pressing on his wound. "At first I thought our intel on you was exageratted, now I see it was completly justified."

"It seems you know alot more about me than I do about you." Doug remarked.

"That I do... and once I have beaten you I look forward to AUUGGHHH!" Deraj was blown through the air as Jared's Boomhammer slammed into his backside.

"I made not be able to see you, but as long as you keep running your yap I can still find you well enough."

"Don't you know it's rude to inturrupt when people are talking?" Deraj asked, raising his visor.

"Jared, stay back, he's up to something and your just a liability without your eyesight." Doug barked.

"Oh aren't we the brave one? You seem to be able to evade my flash bar without much trouble, but do you think you'll have as much luck against a very force of nature? Subduction!" Deraj reached his hand towards Doug, the halfling didn't even have time to react as the ground underneath him imploded and buried him up to his waist.

Deraj drew his revolver and took aim at Doug's head. "I Believe your time is up, monsieur Douglas..." He said as he pulled the pulled the trigger...

* * *

A lone figure scaled down the face of a mountain in the Agon Wastes.

Once the region had been a beautiful grassland, lush and full of life. Then the Leviathan Seed had impacted and infected the planet with the great poison, tearing Aether's planetary energy in half and creating the world the Luminoth called Dark Aether.

Tiny motivator units creaked and groaned in a mechanical limb as he made his way slowly down the mountain. The climbing was difficult, the previous occupant of this body must not have conditioned his muscles to this type of activity.

Far below him lay the entrance of the Space Pirates mine. It was heavily guarded with Elite Pirate Commandos positioned around a strange looking antennae, but he wasn't interested in it . The pirates would try to stop him getting into the mine but they were merely obstacles as far as he was concerned.

Suddenly, his foot slipped from his hold and he began to tumble, only his mechanical reflexes saved him, enabling him to grip the surface of the sheer rock before he fell very far.

A jolt of lightning ran through his brain...

* * *

_Falling._

_Darkness._

_Pain._

_Falling._

_Falling._

_Oblivion.  
_

* * *

The mechanical half of quickly sent a jolt of electricity through his remaining living brain cells, driving the fleeting impression from conscious thought.

A moment later, he came to a rest on a small ledge a few feet wide.

Two pirate aerotroopers swooped towards him, shouting something at him in their strange language. His computer brain instantly began to analyze their vocal patterns.

_Language Identified: Space Pirate._

_Fandom of Use: Metroid, most notably the Prime series._

_Translation in Progress... 36%... 58%... 86%... Complete._

_"What are you? Some sorta freak of nature?"_

_Verbal Response: None necessary._

_Nonverbal response: Eliminate without prejudice, avoid alerting ground troops to presence._

_Stealth mode disengaged. Weapon activation in progress, engage when ready._

The whole thought had only taken half of a second, but when the split-second was over the strange figure raised his scarred left hand and pointed it at the head of the nearest trooper. The end of his ring finger collapsed, retracted and fired a small armor piercing bullet, penetrating the pirate's skull before he had even knew what was happening.

The other pirate immediately put on evasive maneuvers and began to fire missile barrages at the figure on the edge of the cliff, the figure's computer enhanced brain immediately began planning a counterattack.

_Incoming missiles, anti-missile fire initiated... Missiles destroyed._

_Targeting Aerotrooper... Target locked. Fuel pumps have begun filling ignition chamber with petroleum jelly... Ignition chamber is full, petroleum jelly reserves are at 98.657%  
Compensating for wind velocity and relative motion of target, firing explosive burst..._

_Aerotrooper has been neutralized... Chance of recovery: 16.7%_

_New Data: Fire from initial burst now coming into contact with aerotroopers fuel tanks... Aerotrooper has exploded... Chance of recovery: 0%_

_WARNING: Unit has been detected by ground troops, incoming suppressive fire...Stealth mode reengaged._

_Pirates appear to be confused by stealth camouflage... Firing explosive bursts into midst of pirates... Pirates are in retreat..._

_Proceeding as planned..._

* * *

And there you have it, the first chapter of my first multi chapter fic, stick around, it's gonna be a wild ride. (And no, Doug's not going to get shot in the head...)


	2. 3 sides to every story

Disclaimer: I DO in fact own Metroid, and all other appearing characters by other authors, I have stolen them, but never fear I shall return them at the end of this fic.

* * *

Captain Crunch looked out of the cockpit of his helicopter.

"Private Property, set a collision course accelerate to ramming speed!"

"But Captain, you can ram at any speed!"

"Are you refusing to carry out my order?!"

"No sir, I was just pointing out that your order is too vague to make any sort of compliance possible."

"Dammit private, I want men who can thrive on vague objectives! Just point the craft at Deraj and floor it! Is that clear enough for you?!"

The tiny helicopter surged forward at top speed, which was only about as fast as double a normal persons walking speed.

Captain Crunch turned to face Private Industry.

"Private, does Deraj notice our approach?"

"Negative, he seems to preoccupied with Civilian Doug. Hold on... he appears to be aiming some kind of revolver at him."

"What?! Increase speed!"

"Sir, I'm not the one piloting, you need to speak to Private Property!"

Captain Crunch turned to the pilot.

"Private, increase speed!"

"But sir, we're already at the top speed this chopper can go!"

"What?! I thought I told you I wanted ramming speed!"

Deraj drew his revolver and took aim at Doug's head.

"I Believe your time is up, monsieur Douglas..." He pulled the pulled the trigger, and at that moment however the LPGB's Apache slammed into the side of Deraj's head. The Elimination Society agent stumbled and the gun's only bullet ricocheted harmlessly against some rocks. The LPGB helicopter was not designed with ramming in mind and promptly began to fall, crash landing on the rocks beside Doug.

"You'll pay for ruining my dramatic head shot!" Deraj bellowed as he stomped on the top of the tiny chopper. The craft burst into tiny fragments, scattering its plastic crew.

Jared's vision began to come back to him. At first he could only see motion but now he began to make out the blurry outlines of Deraj and Doug. Doug appeared to be struggling to attack his foe but was unable to escape from the hard, desolate ground surrounding him.

"Uh Jared, can you lend me a hand here?" Doug whispered to Jared while Deraj was distracted by Captain Crunch's forces surrounding him, dropping them like flies with a sequence of well aimed stomps.

"Well, I'd never be able to dig you out in a timely fashion, although I suppose I could probably blast you out with earth magic..."

"Well, what are you waiting for? my legs are going numb."

"Geyser!" Jared shouted. The ground beneath Doug suddenly burst outward and he was flung into the air. Doug nimbly twisted in mid-flight and aimed his pistol at Deraj. Unfortunately for him, the gun was jammed with tightly packed dirt and was rendered useless. Doug swore and flung the useless weapon aside. Instead he opted for doing things the old fashion way and simply landed on top of Deraj's back.

"Hey! What are you doing? Get off me!" The mad scientist yelled.

"I bet you wont be so cocky without this thing!" Doug yelled as he yanked Deraj's visor free with a triumphant shout.

"Boomhammer!" Jared shouted as he swung his weapon, but Deraj ducked and Jared wound up hitting Doug on the top of the head.

Doug was thrown of Deraj and bounced several feet before coming to a stop.

"Are you trying to give me a headache?" He yelled at Jared.

"Sorry, my vision hasn't completely cleared yet," Jared replied.

"Nor do I intend on letting it happen!" Deraj yelled, stretching his hand. "Quake!" He screamed.

Jared had never been on the receiving end of earth magic before, but he soon found out that it wasn't pleasant. The pure concussive force threw him into the air, tiny rocks made cuts on his skin and the larger ones hit him with enough force to raise welts and bruises.

Jared slammed into a rock and gasped as the wind was knocked out of him, he desperately trying to inhale as Deraj charged after him.

* * *

Aster had not really thought her moves through very thoroughly. Apparently she was unaware of the fact Cassandra's suit had a gravity booster that allowed her to move normally through the water, unfortunately Aster did not have such a perk, and her movement was severely hindered. You could actually see her mouth take the shape of "KYAA" as she was struck by one of Cassandra's force fields.

Chloe ran up behind the Mary Sue and delivered a crushing blow to the back of her head with her left fist, unfortunately causing no harm to the Sue.

"'Ow rude," Cassandra remarked as she turned around and blasted Chloe with a Super Missile. The resulting explosion threw Chloe several yards away and slammed her into the wall.

_"WARNING: CANNONIZER FUNCTIONALITY AT 84%, GRAPPLE BEAM AND POWER BOMBS HAVE BEEN TAKEN OFFLINE TO COMPENSATE"_ Said a voice in Chloe's helmet over the sound of her own ears ringing.

Chloe decided to try her Arm Cannon again. She pulled back the lever she had tried last time but instead of releasing it all the way she simply held onto it. To her satisfaction a dark mass began to build up at the end of her Arm Cannon. Chloe took aimed and fired, Cassandra had not been expecting her to recover so fast and was taken completely off guard. Dark energy solidified all around her, trapping her inside of a fluid-like purple cocoon.

Aster was not one who liked to be tricked. Once she had recovered she began to prepare to counterattack, strong winds instantly blew down from the heavens in a powerful downdraft, swirling the toxic water of the Torvus Bog. Aster kept the wind blowing until it began to form a whirlpool around Cassandra, who was struggling to break free from her prison. The whirlpool swept her up and began to spin her around in the water, then Aster froze it, further trapping the Sue in a solid block of ice made from the poisonous water.

"So how are we going to prohibit her now?" Chloe shouted at Aster before she realized the fae would not be able to hear her through the liquid.

_Incoming transmission_, warned her suit. At first Chloe thought someone from the Library was contacting her before she realized the warning was coming from the suit itself, not from her communicator.

"Why that's eesy, you won't." Purred Cassandra's voice over her suit's speakers.

_WARNING: Phazon spike detected in target, Cassandra has entered Hypermode._ Was the next message her suit received.

"What?" Said Chloe, "But Hypermode wasn't introduced until the third game, surely she can't have access to weaponry that hasn't been invented yet!" She objected to no one in particular.

Cassandra's makeshift prison shattered and the now-glowing Sue emanating rainbow energy swirls lowered herself to the floor of the bog.

"Yes, I can," was the only response she gave.

* * *

Shirley's claws came into contact with Eolhc's blade with a metallic clang as the Protection agent blocked the Cliche Stick's strike.

Shirley prepared to strike again only to discover Eolhc had vanished.

"Hey, no fair hiding in the shadows!" Shirley protested.

Ben looked around warily, holding Bahamut at the ready until a knife flew out from one of the shadows and severed one of the guitar's strings. The string snapped violently and recoiled into one of Ben's fingers, nearly causing him to drop the weapon entirely but for the strap around his neck.

"Ouch! You have no appreciation for music lady!"

While Ben was being used for target practice, Tyler and Drake were busy fighting their respective counterparts/ Drake grabbed Relyt by the leg and hurled him into Ekard, following up with a Storm Punch to the face and knocking the two Protection Society agents off balance.

"Way to go Drake! If we keep this up we might still have time to raid that cookie stash I saw Adrian hide in the British Literature section." Tyler said as he blasted Relyt with a magic bolt.

"You saw him hide it? Sounds like a decoy to me." Drake replied as he blocked a blow from Ekard and followed up with a punch to his gut.

_Something doesn't feel right, it's never this easy._He thought to himself as one of Elohc's knives bounced harmlessly off of his armor.

* * *

A lone figure began to make his way through the Space Pirates mine leaving a trail of corpses lying in his wake. His skin and clothes shimmered and rippled as light reflected around him. It would take a person with very keen eyesight to distinguish him from the surrounding rock. His computer brain whirred as it began to process his surroundings.

_Distance to destination: 20 yards and closing._

_Pirate resistance: Non-existent. All Space Pirates have been eliminated._

_Destination in sight. Engagement zone is behind this wall._

_Receiving orders from command: Begin placing charges. Disengage stealth mode and engage targets at will._

* * *

Elohc was muttering to herself. What was taking the Osiris unit so long? She wasn't liking fighting with kid gloves on. She'd much rather take Ben and the others head-on then attack from the shadows, but unlike her partner, she viewed orders as more than just suggestions. So she would just have to wait...

She jumped out of the shadows directly behind Ben, punched him in the back of the neck and made a shallow cut across his left shoulder. Tyler turned and prepared to fire a magic bolt, but Eolhc just threw a knife at him. Fortunately for Tyler it had been thrown so that the handle, not the blade struck him between the eyes. When Tyler's vision came back into focus she was gone again.

"I hate fighting these stealthy wannabe ninja types, if only Cristoph were here, he'd show her a thing or two." he muttered.

"It's impolite to mutter you know." Relyt said as he struck Tyler on the back of the head.

* * *

_Somewhere in the Twilight fandom..._

Fred began to tear up in joy. Vampires that sparkle? If that wasn't crack then Fred didn't know what was. He could almost feel himself grow fatter the longer he remained in the fandom.

Larry, Fred's emotive mustache, perked into a U shape.

He turned to this series' protagonist, Edward Cullens, who was gazing in shock at the 800 pound man's frightening form.

"Stay sparkly!" Fred yelled as he extended is arm, "Wonder crack powers, activate!"

A plothole suddenly opened above the Twipires head, dumping a massive pile of mashed potatoes on him, and buring completely. Fred then opened a new plothole and began to depart, "Oh quit looking at me like that Larry!"

A lonesome Mary-Sue watched the scene play out from a park bench.

"Well...That was something you don't see everyday..." Willowe muttered to herself as the mashed potatoes began to dissolve.

* * *

"Tremor!" Jared managed to cough, Deraj was struck by an earth wave and tumbled forward.

Doug ran up behind Deraj and swung his blade, Deraj dodged at the last second but not without having his jacket get stuck on Doug's blade and pulled off.

"Hey! Give that back!" He barked.

"Hey, this is just my size." Doug said as he tried on the jacket.

"I didn't want to do this, but you two leave me no choice!" Deraj bellowed.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a remote control and began pressing buttons. Doug and Jared instantly became aware of a loud engine noise and were forced to leap out of the way as a Toyota Camry appeared out of a plothole.

The car barreled towards Deraj. Inside, many computer systems on the dashboard were calculating speed an trajectory. Once the speedometer hit 141.62 KPH (88 MPH in metric) a switch labeled 'Canonizer' automatically flipped itself into the on position at the exact time it hit Deraj.

Parts of the car began to fly apart and encircle Deraj, forming armor that to Jared looked like Galactic Federation Marine armor.

"Down!" Jared yelled to Doug. "He's become a Missile Trooper!"

Jared and Doug dove behind a cluster of rocks as Deraj began to fire missiles at them, Doug turned to Jared.

"You have any idea's for beating this guy?" He asked.

"As a matter of fact..." Jared whipped out his Communicator.

"Jared calling Charis, I repeat: Jared calling Charis, anybody there?"

There was a sound of things falling off of shelves and a squeak of surprise from the other end.

"You startled me. Where are you? It sounds like your in a war zone!" Came Charis' voice as another missile collided with the boulder Jared and Doug were using for shelter.

"Well, that's a song that ain't so very far from wrong Charis. Can you do me a favor? I need you to run over to my lab and grab a couple of the toy helicopters sitting on the shelves, tell General Idea the password is 'It's a family tradition.'"

"Alright, I'll get right on it. Charis out."

Captain Crunch turned to Jared. "Pardon me sir, but wasn't that last weeks password?"

* * *

Phazon energy bursts flew past Chloe as she evaded Cassandra's attacks. Cassandra appeared to be laughing, but it was impossible to know for sure without opening up a com-link, which was something Chloe was not very eager to do.

"Encanto!" She yelled, attempting to summon her shield. It seemed to fizzle into existence for a brief period of time before being dissolved.

Normally Hypermode only lasted so long, but as a Sue, Chloe doubted Cassandra had any such restrictions.

Aster repeatedly tried to freeze Cassandra, but the Sue's Phazon aura kept shattering the ice before it could form in a significant amount. Cassandra gave her a look out of the corner of her eye, attempting to non-verbally convey to Aster that she should wait her turn. This only served to enrage the fae, she began to charge her lunar beams when she was suddenly trapped in a green bubble.

"That ought to 'old 'er" Cassandra said to herself smugly. she turned to Chloe, she had still had one last trick she wanted to pull.

Chloe attempted to leap out of the way of where she assumed Cassandra's next shot would hit only to collide with a green barrier. She quickly tried to move in the other direction with the same result.

"Oh dear, I appear to be boxed in..." Was all she could say before the Phazon Missile struck...

Her visor display was reduced to static and warning noises began to fill her helmet.

_WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE TO THE CANNONIZER, LIGHT SUIT HAS FAILED. ACTIVATING DARK SUIT._

_NO!_ Chloe thought,_ the Dark suit isn't designed to handle toxic water, I'll be dead in seconds!_

When her display came back into focus, she could see quite clearly the speed her now red and brown colored Power Suit was losing energy as the shields rapidly depleted her reserves in order to keep the water out.

_ENERGY LOW_flickered across her visor screen, she was just about to lose hope when suddenly there was no water around her. She appeared to be inside a miniature tornado that held the water back as it lifted her up. The air still ate away at her shielding, but at not nearly the same rate as it was while she was underwater. The vortex set her down inside of the Luminoth Light Crystal's dark-repressing field. The energy from the crystal slowly began to sink into Chloe's armor, repairing damaged systems and restoring energy/ Chloe turned to see Aster standing next to her.

"Cassandra's shielding appears to be hard-light based. I can dispel light, naturally her bubble couldn't hold me. Can you fight?"

Chloe coughed. "Most of Chevila's weapons are offline, and I don't have the energy to take very many hits, I'll be killed if I stray too far from this Light Crystal, I think you're on your own."

A grapple beam shot between the two and latched onto the edge of the bridge as Cassandra dragged herself up.

"You two are like dey cockroaches, you just won't die!" She screamed.

* * *

Karrissa was walking through the commons when her communicator rang.

"Jared calling Karrissa, I repeat: Jared calling Karrissa, please respond."

Karrisa opened her communicator and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Uh, this is awkward... I sent your sister to go get some supplies out of my lab, but I seem to have neglected to give her the correct password...She's probably fine, but you might want to go check on her. Jared out."

Karrissa wondered what the harm could be in entering a wrong password.

Then she remembered the nature of some of Jared's experiments.

Karrisa made her way to the science hall, she opened the door to Jared's lab and was greeted by a scene of utter chaos.

"Karrisa! Help me!" Screamed Charis as helicopters trailing grapples circled her body, binding her legs together. She fell to the floor with a thunk.

"Get her men! Show her what we do to people who try to steal our equipment." Shouted General Idea.

"I'm telling you! Jared ASKED me to send him some helicopters! I wasn't trying to steal them." Charis objected as ground troops began to drag more cables across her body and secure her to the floor.

"A likely story! You didn't even know the correct password! Most likely you're a Communist spy! When will you Reds learn not to mess with us!?"

General Idea was suddenly picked up by an invisible force. "What in tarnation!" He yelled as Karrisa materialized out of nowhere with her hand wrapped around his body.

"Bloody hell! She's brought the whole damn KGB down on us..."

* * *

"Disenchanto!" Came a voice. The same instant it reached Drake's ears a vaguely Spartan-esc shield was slammed into the side of his head, followed by a Drought Punch from Ekard.

Drake was severly disoriented from the two-pronged assault, he was having a hard time keeping his balance.

"That's it, I've had it!" he yelled. "Ben, Nuke the room!"

Before Ben could reply, he was hit in the back by the blunt side of Eolhc's shield. He turned around and prepared to strike, only to predictably have no target.

"Are you sure?" He asked quizzingly.

"Do it!" Replied Tyler, parrying a blow from Relyt.

"Alright, everybody get close!"

The three Society Agents and the one Cliche stick got a close as possible to each other.

Elohc knew now her strike force was in danger, and orders or no orders she was going to have to kill Ben. She drew a knife and took aim for Ben's throat as he was judging where the best place to drop the bomb would be. She was just about to throw when her wrist computer gave her an alert.

"Finally, our work here is done..." She muttered. "Everybody! Resta has ordered us to return to base! We're done here, vamos." She yelled, as she and her fellow agents whipped out their plothole generators, just as Ben was summoning a nuke.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Cried Ben, five fingers extended. Five nukes all landed at various points in the room, exploding and causing serious damage to all the pirate equipment.

The entire chamber started to rumble and dust and stones descended from the ceiling. Everyone had to adjust their footing to remain upright for several seconds before the rumbling ceased.

"Did we win?" Ben asked as the smoke settled.

"Anybody else smell napalm?" Drake asked.

"Not right now, but I love to smell of it in the mornings." Tyler replied, nimbly stepping aside as Shirley tried to take a bite out of his leg. Shirley was about to lunge again when the wall behind the group exploded, blowing them all back.

Ben coughed through the dust that hung everywhere in the air.

"I've gotta hand it to you," He said as he picked up Bahamut and got back to his feet. "You sure know how to make an entrance."

The figure standing in the hole in the wall remained silent and still.

Ben adjusted his glasses where they'd been knocked askew from the blast and squinted.

"Who are you?" He asked.

Just then, a gentle breeze blew through the hole that had been blasted in the wall, stirring the airborne dust and blowing it away.

All color drained from Ben's face and his eyes widened in fear. The breath left his lungs in a rush as if he'd been punched.

"N...Neb?" Ben's voice quavered.

"Negative." Came a flat mechanical voice. "Unit Designation: Osiris. The one you knew as Neb no longer occupies this vessel. You have been brought here so that I may be tested in combat."

Neb, or more accurately his body, was still dressed in his leather outfit, but now it was in tatters. He still wore his broken glasses as well, but in place of an eye a camera lens stared out at them from where his glasses had been broken. The arm the Ben had torn off had been replaced by a sophisticated napalm launcher, and there was a mini-gun mounted on his shoulder. The first thing that Ben noticed, however, was that this _thing's_ mouth had been sewn shut, instead relying on the speaker box mounted on his collar which was covered in dials and receivers to communicate verbally.

Osiris' computer brain whirred as he analyzed the look of horror on the foursomes faces, calculating his next move.

_Targets identified: ACMSES agents Ben, Tyler and Drake. Analyzing defenses..._

_Defenses: Inadequate, can easily be overpowered with heavy weapons fire._

_Recommended Strategy: Use maximum firepower at maximum speed._

_Napalm ignition chamber is fueling..._

_Ballistic Missile Launcher status: Three rockets ready to fire, beginning pre-launch sequence._

The thought had taken about a second from start to finish.

When the second was over, Osiris turned his head to face Drake.

_Target: Drake Dragonsoul. Targets threat level is highest at close range, eliminate from a distance._

Osiris' mini-gun began to spin. Drake barely had time to solidify his cape before he was hit by a hail of bullets.

Tyler charged at Osiris, whirling his axle staff. Without even turning to face him Osiris just reached out and grabbed Tyler around the neck, in the same motion he turned to face Ben and launched Tyler as a makeshift projectile at him.

"MMMMUUUFFFFINNNNNSSSS!" Came Tyler's voice as Ben broke into a Fast-Step to avoid him, Tyler rocketed by him and slammed into a wall.

"Are you alright?" Ben gasped as he collapsed to his knees, panting from the effort of the Fast-Step.

"Look at all the pretty stars and birdies..."

"C'mon, pull it together Tyler!" Ben yelled. Tlyer just slumped backwards, his eyes closed. "No good, he's out cold!"

"Ben! Get this guy off of me!" Yelled Drake from behind his cape.

Osiris noticed that bullets were proving ineffective against Drake.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Ben wheezed, pushing his exhausted lungs father than he would've liked.

Osiris suddenly refocused his attention.

_Incoming projectile, high explosive yield._

_Predicted blast radius: 15 feet, initiating defense pattern delta._

Osiris raised his right arm towards the rapidly closing nuke and fired a burst of napalm.

Fire consumed the room.

* * *

A bit of the rock Jared and Doug were pinned down behind broke off and soared across the temple grounds.

"You two might as well come out! I have an unlimited supply of missiles. You're just delaying the inevitable" Deraj called.

"What part of that sentence would make us want to come out? Jared yelled, wishing he had Chevila with him.

"Dang it, what's taking Charis so long? This rock won't hold much longer."

* * *

General Idea was trapped in one of Jared's workshop vices, all of his subordinates froze in fear.

"Let her go right now!" Karrisa screamed.

General Idea turned his head to face Karrisa.

"Name: Idea, Rank: General, serial number: 0000" The tiny plastic man replied. Karrisa stared at Idea with a confused look on her face.

"What are you talking about?" She asked.

"Under the Geneva Convention, captured soldiers are required to give no more information than their name, rank and serial number to their captors." Crunch replied before going silent.

"What's going on in here? I can hear you all the way in my office." Adrian asked as he stepped into Jared's lab.

"Adrian! Help!" Called Charis from her position on the floor.

"These guys again? I'm going to have to have a talk with Jared, these guys are causing way too much trouble," The "ibrarian remarked before punching a large red button on the wall. The plastic army men fell lifeless to the floor.

"What happened? They all just died..." Karrissa asked.

"No, I just hit the emergency 'Stand Down' button I made Jared install after his army men attacked me..."

"Come again?" Asked Charis.

"I was ambushed by a battalion of these guys on one of my rounds. They came out of the ventilation and informed me that they were going to liberate the Library's supply of chocolate. I must say it was one of the most unusual battles I've ever been in. They retreated after I wiped out half their ranks, Jared assured me it was an accident and sometimes they slip out of his control. I told him to either dismantle them or to design a fail safe, he obviously chose the latter." Adrian remarked as he turned to leave.

* * *

Captain Crunch and the rest of his men dropped where they stood.

Jared snatched his plastic form off the ground. "Crunch! Speak to me!" The tiny naval officer said nothing.

"What happened?" Asked Doug while he was working on repairing his pistol.

"Someone must have pressed the shutdown button. I can't turn them back on until I get back to my lab..."

Karrisa suddenly appeared behind the two carrying two toy Blackhawk helicopters. Jared was about to ask what took so long until he noticed the look on her face, instead he just began apologizing profusely.

"You owe me big mister!" Was all Karrisa said as she handed Jared the helicopters and stepped back through the plothole. Jared made a mental note to do something nice for Karrisa and Charis in the near future.

"So what's the plan here?" Doug asked.

Jared pulled the grapples on the helicopters out and tied them together. "You ever see 'The Empire Strikes Back?'" He asked as he handed Doug a remote control.

* * *

Chloe gasped as Cassandra's grapple beam attached to her neck, Cassandra gave the beam a sharp tug and pulled Chloe out of the Light Crystals energy radius.

"Aster, Help!" Chloe gasped as her suit's already low energy began to deplete even more as she came into contact with Dark Aether's atmosphere.

A pillar of ice shot up from the ground between Chloe and Cassandra, severing the grapple beam. Chloe leapt back towards the Light Crystal.

"KYAA!" Aster suddenly appeared behind the Sue and slammed her Moon Staff into the Sues lower back.

Cassandra gasped as a shard of ice pierced her armor and and was driven into her flesh.

Aster retracted her staff as Cassandra's gasp of pain turned into a scream as Dark Aether's corrosive air began to eat away at her flesh through the breach in her armor.

Cassandra briefly glowed green as she summoned a force field around herself in order to create a bubble of clean air. Aster just dispelled it.

"Eat this, Frenchy!" Yelled Chloe as she released a blast from her arm cannon she had been charging.

Chloe hadn't expected the blow to contain so much power. Cassandra was blown clean off of the bridge. The two agents heard a splash and ran over to the side of the bridge. They looked just in time to see Cassandra's arm cannon sink into the murky waters.

"Well, that's one more Sue we won't have to worry about." Remarked Chloe. There was a flash of light as the Suit's Cannonizer recharged from being near the Light Crystal and brought the Light Suit back online.

"Should we go join the others?" Chloe asked right as her Communicator started ringing.

"Chloe, this is Tash. Cassandra is gone, but the monitors are still registering high levels of Sueish activity in your area."

"How is that possible?" Chloe asked.

"How am I supposed to know? You're the techie."

Chloe sighed, "Alright, I'll have a look around."

* * *

The room lay in ruins.

Pirate crates were turned over and shattered and anything that would catch had been set ablaze. The only thing that was seemingly unaffected was Osiris, who was once again stalking towards the group.

"Oh my aching hair..." Drake muttered, getting up and shaking his head. He began to stand up from where he had been blown off of his feet, his eyes widened when he saw Osiris was still moving.

"Oh c'mon, how many times do you have to die before you stay down?" He objected.

Osiris didn't answer. Instead he just lifted a fallen rock with his still mostly-human hand and rolled it at Drake like an enourmous bowling ball.

"Que Indiana Jones music!" Drake shouted as he began to sprint to keep ahead of the rock when it suddenly exploded into harmless fragments.

Osiris turned to face Ben, who still had his finger pointed at where the rock had been.

There was a gash on Ben's right temple where his head had been hit. Ben lowered his hand and raised Bahamut. The guitar was partially melted. Ben looked down at the instrument in his hands.

_I could try to unleash Death Metal Bahamut now, but I'm not sure if it's taken enough damage yet. Plus, even if it has, there's no guarantee it'll be able to take Neb--Osiris down again. If it doesn't I'll be nearly defenseless...but if I don't--_

"Do it!" Shouted Shirley, reading his mind. "And make sure you kill him for good this time!"

Ben gritted his teeth. Apparently his choice had been made for him.

Ben took the strap off from around his neck and held Bahamut up towards Osiris. His eyebrow furrowed, black shadows began to leak from his eyes and his voice distorted.

**_Strike with the fury of a wounded god...Bahamut!_**

The fire around Ben was instantly snuffed as shadows fused with raw power blasted outwards, hiding him from view. Ben could feel the guitar twisting and morphing in his hands. Curves became edges and he felt the fretboard strech and grow longer under his left hand. A second skin slid over the guitar's surface as silver was replaced with black and swoosh marks inverted from black to a glowing white.

There was no exchange of words between the two this time as Ben parted the shadows with a screaming guitar solo, for Osiris had already said all that he had deemed nessacary, and Ben was too frightened to say anything even the slightest bit cocky.

A concussive blast burst forth from Death Metal Bahamut and slammed into Osiris' minigun. There was a sound of sheering metal as the gun tore free from the rivets holding it in place.

Osiris raised his napalm launcher in a jerky motion indicating shoulder damage from the hit, the motion was proceeded by a blast of napalm. Ben hammered a chord on Death Metal Bahamut as drops of sweat built on his forehead. The concussive blast and the napalm collided in midair and exploded, knocking Ben back.

Ben wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he prepared to fire again. This time the blast hit Osiris in the chest with a loud metallic crash. The cyborg slid back and stumbled, but did not fall. The blast had torn off the front of his ratty leather jacket, exposing reinforced metal plating that had been severly dented and cracked from the last blast.

"Aim for his head!" Shouted Drake as he ran back towards the battle. Ben's hand arced downward again, but before he could manage to string a note off the guitar flickered back to it's standerd form.

"No!" Ben shouted, feeling sick. Apparently Bahamut hadn't sustained enough damage to warrant a longer transformation.

"Storm Punch!" Shouted Drake, leaping at the cyborg. Osiris just turned and caught him by the neck. Drake gasped as Osiris raised his napalm launcher and fired a thin spray all over the agent. It quickly ignited, covering Drake with flames. Osiris flung him aside and turned to face Ben.

"Gah! I'm on fire!" Shouted Drake, deactivating his armor to avoid being burned.

Osiris raised his left hand towards Ben, the middle finger collapsed as he prepared to fire on Ben...

"Hi Neb! Did you miss me?" Shouted Tyler as leaped on Osiris' back and slammed his staff into his face. Osiris' eye cameras cracked and began to lose their focus.

"I am not the agent Neb. My designation is Osiris." The cyborg stated flatly, not in the least concerned by the loss of his vision as he tried to throw Tyler off.

"Tyler! I thought you were down!" Shouted Drake.

"I got better!" The paddle-wielding agent answered as he leapt forward and blasted Osiris' damaged armor. The metal plate shattered, revealing a series of instruments wired into thin layers of copper plating beneath.

Osiris tried to backhand Tyler but the blow just passed through Tyler's hair as the agent ducked.

Tyler trusted his staff into Osiris' middle torso, releasing a burst of black fluid that smelled vaguely of formaldehyde into Tyler's face.

"Yuck! Even I think that's gross!" Tyler yelled as he stumbled back, gagging.

"My coffeemakers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!" Shouted Ben, releasing a torrent of coffee at the cyborg.

The coffee had a far greater effect than Ben expected. The thing was blown over and knocked onto the ground, sparks began to crawl across it's body as it began to jerk violently and gibberish crackled from it's neck speaker. After several seconds, Neb's body settled it turned to look at Ben.

Ben could only stare in horrified fascination as a cold smile crawled across Osiris lips, which was quite creepy considering it's mouth was sewn shut.

The speaker around Osiris neck crackled for a second, before the voice of Neb came though one last time.

"Death... is only the beginning."

Then Osiris went still.

* * *

Aster sat on the ground looking bored while Chloe examined the Luminoth light crystal. Suddenly, Chloe shot up, a worried expression on her face.

"It appears someone has embedded a micro antenna into the crystal, it looks like it's designed to emit false Sue readings! This whole mission has been a decoy! The other agents are falling into a trap. We have to go!" Chloe shouted as she began to run, dragging Aster along by her shoulder.

"Wait...what?"

* * *

Deraj fired one last missile at Jared and Doug's makeshift shelter and the rock shattered into millions of pieces.

Deraj glanced at Doug. "Tell you what. I don't need you, hand over the techie and I'll let you walk away."

Doug didn't answer, he just raised his repaired pistol and fired, the bullet knocked Deraj off of his feet as it embedded itself into his armor.

"Fair enough! We shall do this the old fashioned way!" He said as he stood up, then Doug shot him down again.

"Would you stop doing that? It's rather annoying?" He complained, so Doug shot him once again.

"Feel free to stand back up, I have plenty of ammo." Doug said.

"That won't be necessary." Replied Deraj. "Quake!"

Doug was blown through the air and slammed into a rock wall. Deraj drew his revolver, loaded a bullet and fired at the downed halfling, Doug let out a brief shout as the bullet entered his shoulder.

"Boomhammer!" Jared yelled, charging at Deraj. Deraj turned towards the charging agent and fired a missile at the hammer. Hammer and missile collided, blowing Jared back and flinging him next to Doug.

"Now?" Asked Doug.

"Now!" Shouter Jared as he whipped out a remote control.

The two helicopters flew in behind Deraj and began to fly circles around him.

"What?" Deraj was tempted to ignore them, when he noticed the cord tying them together. He suddenly found his limbs were tangled up. The lines went taunt and Deraj tumbled over.

"Your under arrest on behalf of the ACMSES." Jared called to his counterpart.

Deraj sighed. "You're going to force me to play my trump card Jared, I don't think you want to do that."

"We'll take our chances!" Said Doug, wondering what they would do with a non-Stu prisoner.

Deraj grimaced, he had been bluffing. Osiris was busy battling in the Agon Wastes and Cassandra was still on the surface of Dark Aether. Deraj began to struggle against the cords binding him in a mad effort to break free.

Doug noticed something out of the corner of his eye and had just enough time to push Jared to the ground when several knives flew out of a plothole.

"Deraj, sometimes I think your as incompetent as your counterpart. Letting yourself get captured by helicopters carrying bailing twine? You're just as bad as Repiv." Eolhc said as she and 4 other members of the PCMSPS came through the plothole. Eolhc drew a short sword from her belt and slashed the bonds that bound Deraj.

"Move people!" Retsa shouted to Ekard and Relyt as they stumbled out of the plothole.

"Seriously! You order us to let ourselves get beat up for an entire fight, call us back, and then order use right back into the field?" Ekard objected.

"Dude, shut up," replied Relyt as he drew his weapon.

"Doug... I'm afraid we've just been one upped," Jared said solomly

Retsa smirked. "You might want to double check your calculations... I beleive you've just been four or five upped," lhe leader of the PCMSPS said as an army of Uber Stus began to pour into the fandom behind them.

"And so it begins..." Deraj said as he pointed his missle launcher at Doug and fired.

* * *

"So... What now?" Asked Tyler, staring at Osiris prone form.

"We could take it back to one of the labs... maybe they could run some tests." Drake suggested. Nobody was standing too close to the body out of a combination of fear and disgust.

"We should destroy it now, it's already been ressurected once." added Shirley.

Before the debate could continue to play out the group was interrupted by the sudden appearance of yet another plothole. Something flew out of the plothole and bounced to the feet of the group.

It was a grenade.

"You know, I'm really starting to hate these things." Drake grumbled.

The weapon went off with a sonic blast, incapacitating the group.

Sirahc out of the plothole and stepped over the prone agents as she walked over to where Osiris lay.

"Oh Deraj, I told you this model wouldn't stand up to the tests..." She pulled out a pocket clipboard and began to make notes, "When we build version 2.0 we're defiantly going to need to make it waterproof to prevent future short circuiting." She muttered to herself. "The minigun it too heavy and cumbersome, so that's just going to have to go... the napalm launcher isn't functional enough to warrent replacing a hand, that will have to be redesigned too... and another thing..."

* * *

Oooh, cliffhanger ending... aren't I evil.

BTW, until Osiris becomes a fully established character in the ACMSES-verse, I'd appreciate it if my fellow authors would restrict themselves to only alluding to his existence, this will be lifted in the near future.


	3. Divided we conquer, united we fall

_"As the Riders walked on by him, he heard one call his name... 'if you want to save your soul from hell a-riden' on our range,_

_Then cowboy change your ways today, or with us you will ride, trying to catch the devil's herd, across these endless skies..."_

_~ From Ghost Riders in the Sky, a cowboy legend..._

_

* * *

  
_

Doug took aim at the missile and fired. The bullet ricochet off the missile's casing and knocked it go off course where it exploded harmlessly several feet away.

"Five to two aren't the best odds Jared, we need to retreat!" Doug yelled as he and Jared whipped out their Plothole Generators.

"Not so fast!" Deraj shouted as he pressed a button on his wristwatch. The antenna attached to the Great Temple suddenly began to emit a reddish glow and both the Agent's plothole generators shorted out.

"C'mon, this trick again?" Jared objected.

Deraj shrugged. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it,"

"Alright," Jared shrugged. "Well if you've got the situation here under control, I'm just going to go now."

He and Doug took off running, dodging knives, magic blasts, fireballs and earth waves.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Jared and he stopped running.

"What are you doing?" Yelled Doug, swatting down a knife with his sword and shooting down another missile with his pistol.

"No man gets left behind!" Jared yelled, scooping up the immobile forms of Crunch and the LPGB before taking off running again.

With the sheer amount of weaponry being directed at them, the duo couldn't hope to to avoid it forver. Doug took a knife and a weak fireball in the back while Jared was tripped up by an earth blast.

Doug got back up and pulled the knife out of his back. Deraj's jacket had actually kept most of the attack from actually coming into contact with him. No wonder biker's like leather, it was not only cool, but great if you ever found yourself sliding across the pavement at 50 MPH. Doug thought as he pocketed the knife.

"Eolhc! I wanted that jacket back intact!" Deraj yelled.

"Hey, not my problem!" Eolhc responded.

"Don't let them get away!" Yelled Retsa, shooting a hail of rock shards at Doug.

Jared coughed up some dirt. "E-e-epicenter!" He managed to stutter as he hit the ground and Retsa's rock shards were suddenly swallowed by a massive wave of sand. Retsa summoned a massive firestorm to counter the wave, turning the sand into glass. Relyt and Ekard immidiatly began to attempt to break their way through the barrier.

"Save your breath fools!" Shouted Retsa.

"What! But they're getting away!" Objected Relyt.

"That path leads to the Agon Wastes, more specifically into the Space Pirates metroid hatchery." Retsa explained. "If we cut through Dark Aether we'll beat them there, and once we release the metroids they'll make quick work of Doug, and Jared will have no choice but to surrender."

Deraj turned to Retsa, "And how do you plan on getting us through Dark Aether without turning us all extra crispy?" He asked.

"Interrupt me again and I'll throw you into the Ing hive. I wonder what would kill you first, the atmosphere or the Ing?"

Retsa growldd and began to lay out her plan to the rest of the agents.

* * *

Tyler hopped to his feet and looked around. They were alone in the forgotten mine, and Osiris was gone, which was all the better.

"Well, shall we continue?" He asked as Ben, Drake and Shirley got up and dusted themselves off.

"We can't here, that's for sure, Osiris' liberal use of explosives has made the mine unstable. If we don't leave we risk the whole place caving in." Drake muttered.

"Well, let's go this direction, that's the elevator Relyt, Ekard and Eolhc came down in. Maybe we can see where they came from." Ben suggested.

"Well what are we waiting for?" Shouted Shirley, and with that the group called the elevator.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Asked Aster as she charged after Chloe.

"We have to find a light portal, it's a dimensional anomaly that can be used to cross from Dark to Light Aether. I've downloaded both Aether's Atlases and I believe I've found a location where we can cross over in Dark Agon Wastes into the Space Pirate mine."

Chloe suddenly stopped running and raised a hand to her helmet.

"Hang on, I'm getting a message from Jared's team, I'll put them on speaker."

"Chloe, Aster, what is your condition?" Came Doug's voice.

"We're fine, we ran into Cassandra, but I don't think we're going to be seeing much of her anymore." Chloe said. "But more importantly, I believe someone has set a trap in this fandom by making us think there were more Sues then there actually were."

Jared voice came out of her suits speakers in reply, "You're right, it was our PCMSPS counterparts. We need to regroup, what's your position?"

"We are currently en route to the Space Pirates Research Station."

"Good, so are we, over and out."

* * *

Jared closed his communicator and leaned against the wall, looking tired.

"Are you all right?" Doug asked.

"Yeah, just give me a minute," replied Jared.

"What's wrong?"

"That last burst of earth magic took alot out of me. Normally I'm able to recharge fairly quickly, but Aether is a dead planet, and I haven't been on soil since The Dresden Files, I'm on my last wind. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep using earth magic,"

Jared took a deep breath and shouldered the Boomhammer. "Well let's keep going, we don't want to the PCMSPS to catch up to us."

* * *

Charis stood in a corner of the science hall storage locker with Pete, both were looking at a massive ray gun-like device mounted on two iron legs that looked like it was about to fall apart.

"So what's this thing again?" Asked Pete.

"This is Jared's large scale Plothole Generator, he built it to get rid of the tribbles, but I believe it could possibly hold the key to breaking through the magnetic fields that has stopped our regular plothole generators from working. There's just one problem."

"What's that?" Pete asked.

"Jared began to dismantle this thing after he got rid of the tribbles, and Jared's method of writing blueprints is so unusual that I have no clue how to read them, I think they may be written in 'Lego'. We'll have to improvise when we try to reconstruct this thing."

Pete frowned, looking at the techie. "Hey, are you alright? You seem on edge."

"Well, ever since this morning, dealing with Jared's gadgets has become a dangerous task. If Tash hadn't asked me to develop a counter-magnet, I wouldn't even be considering it..."

* * *

Chloe and Aster entered the area known as the Dark Agon wastes, tracking the location of a dimensional anomaly that they could use to cross over to Light Aether, when Chloe's hostility radar suddenly lit up dead ahead.

A white bubble suddenly appeared and swelled, it retracted almost immediately, depositing the 5 PCMSPS agents. As soon as they entered the area a Luminoth Light Shield appeared around them, pushing back the harmful atmosphere.

"Designing a portable light crystal on the spot, no wonder you're the leader." Deraj acknowledged.

"Just remember, you'll die if you go outside five feet around me." Retsa said, keeping a tight grip on the Light Crystal.

Deraj was suddenly hit by a mass of dark energy, and was instantly encased in a purple cocoon of fluid like matter.

"Drat, I was hoping to hit the light crystal." Chloe muttered from her vantage point, "If I had, the Dark energy would have shut it down.

Relyt and Ekard immediately began to charge after Chloe and Aster, only to have Eohlc grab them by their necks.

"What part of 'don't go more than five feet from Retsa or you'll die' did you not understand?" She snarled.

Deraj broke out of his cocoon, breathing heavily. The last blast had inflicted more damage to his missile trooper armor, he wouldn't be able to take too many more hits, especially considering the amount of bullet holes Doug had already left.

"Aster, we have the advantage! We can fight in Dark Aether, they can't!" Chloe said as she dodged one of Deraj's missiles.

Retsa began hurling fireball at her counterpart, who dodged them with ease.

Aster flew towards the agents. Chloe did her best to follow using all of her Power Suits movement systems, using her Screw Attack to cross large gaps in the landscape and Space Jumping across the short ones, but despite her best efforts she quickly fell behind the fae.

"You know, in the manga version of this game, some of the troopers from the Tyr survived, they would have wiped these guys out long ago." Aster complainded as she launched ice shards at the group, they were quickly knocked aside by a hail of projectiles fired by the foil agents.

"We do not have time for this!" Yelled Retsa as she flung a fireball at Aster, the fae nimbly flew around it.

"I agree. Seeing as we both have earth powers, I propose that we combine them in order to bring this engagement to a speedy conclusion." Deraj prompted.

"For once Deraj, you're right. Follow my lead," Retsa commanded.

Deraj deactivated his Missle Trooper suit, Toyotanya briefly appeared in the groups midst before vanishing into a plothole.

Deraj closed his eyes, took a deep breath and began to draw Dark Aether's blackened planetary energy from his surroundings. When he opened them again he cupped his hands together and turned to Retsa.

"Meteor!" He shouted, interlocking his palms and releasing his stored earth magic at the leader of the group. The magic billowed around Retsa as she drew it around her, augmenting it with her own powers, then she sent the burst of energy into Dark Aether's bleeding red sky.

Chloe was only seconds away from a more effective firing range when a giant flaming rock fell from the heavens and smashed the ground in front of her. The shock-wave knocked her off of her feet and sent her flying back. Similar rocks were falling all around her, each with enough force to completely destroy her shielding within a couple of hits. Some of the meteors were even exploding as they hit the ground.

"Think they've had enough?" Deraj asked jokingly as he watched Aster frantically try and freeze and shatter meteors before they could hit her.

"No, but we don't have time to deal with them. Let us continue on our way." Resta ordered as they turned towards the Light Portal that would take them to Aether's Agon wastes. Retsa forced the portal open with a burst of light. She grinned and gave the struggling duo one last look before her group stepped through the portal, sealing it inside a tomb of rock behind them.

* * *

"Don't mess with nukes!"

"Storm Punch!"

"I don't call my moves!"

The Agents attacks collided with a grey colored door, all three bouncing off ineffectively. The door was equipped with a blast shield, impervious to even the heaviest of weapon fire.

"Now what do we do?" Asked Drake.

"I suppose we'll just have to go back to the Library and re-enter the fandom at another location, unless there's a way to get that shield off." said Tyler.

"I believe I can help you," came a female voice from the shadows. The group of Agents jumped.

"Who are you?" Ben asked.

A striking blond woman in a blue jumpsuit stepped out of the shadows. "My name is Samus Aran," she said, "That door will only open once all pirate resitance has been neatralized."

"But we already have! Do you see any pirate forces in this area?" Ben asked.

A sharp cry sounded from above, followed by an intense crash as several cracks spread across the ceiling.

"There is exactly one..." Samus replied as she drew her emergency pistol.

Another cry sounded as the ceiling collapsed, allowing Meta Ridley enter the area.

Samus charged her pistol and fired into Meta Ridley's face, Ridley reeled back, more in surprise than pain. Samus flipped the barrel of the weapon down and extended the plasma whip. She leapt at the creatures leg and slashed at it's knee. Ridley cried in pain and swung it's tail at Samus but she dodged and dove behind some rocks.

"Don't just stand there gawking! Cover me!" Samus shouted at the three agents.

Tyler began to fire magic blasts at the cybernetically enhanced dragon, the blasts only served to enrage it, causing it to refocus his attention on Tyler.

"Slicing Gale!" Drake yelled as he fired his boomerangs into Ridley's face, they burst harmlessly on contact.

"Aim for the chest you fools! It's the only place his armor is vulnerable!" Samus yelled as she flipped onto Ridley's back and swung her plasma whip into his mouth, the whip wrapped around it's tongue, smoke began to pour out of the mouth as Ridley hissed in pain and rose onto his hind legs.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Called Ben, pointing at Ridley's chest. The nuke impacted and exploded, shattering the chest piece.

Tyler leapt at the beast and slammed weapon into his chest, Ridley screamed as yellowish fluid burst from a wound.

"Isn't this the same way we beat the last resurrected cyborg freak?" Tyler asked as he wiped the yellow fluid off his shirt.

"Not quite, unless this guy is allergic to caffine I doubt Ben's coffee attack will work on this guys, but I have an idea. Tyler, do you feel up to trying that move we've been practicing?"

Tyler dodged an awkward blast of energy that burst out of Ridley's mouth around Samus' whip.

"What? You mean the..."

"Most certainly!"

"Let's do it!" Tyler said, turning around and heading for the wall behind Drake.

"Do I even want to know?" Ben asked as he leapt over a sweep of Ridley's tail.

"That depends, are you a fan of either baseball or classic X-men? Because you're about to witness a..." Tyler dramatically paused his sentence as he used his axle staff to pole vault himself to the far wall, he followed this with a magical energy charged leap over to where Drake was standing, he landed nimbly on one of Drake's glowing fists.

"Fastball special!" Tyler and Drake shouted simultaneously.

"Storm Punch!" Drake finished as he flung Tyler at Ridley for all he was worth. Tyler slammed into Ridley's chest staff first, followed by his shoulder, the chest piece let out a massive crack and split open upon impact. Tyler reached into his pouch, pulled out a grenade and dropped it into the crook of the opening and bounced off. The grenade detonated and created a massive explosion. Ridley gave an injured shout and took to the air, violently swinging his head to one side. Samus was thrown off and slammed hard into a wall. It would have only been a glancing hit had her armor been activated. She briefly regretted ejecting out of it to escape from Cassandra as she lost consciousness.

* * *

"Okay, so let's just do a quick recap. We can't run, we can't escape, and we can't fight with a reasonable chance of victory. You got any thoughts on the matter?" Jared asked as he and Doug wandered around the metroid hatchery.

"Well, if military history has taught me anything, when your back is to the wall and the odds are against you, the best thing you can do is set a trap..."

* * *

A glowing beam of energy fired out of a crater, latching onto it's edge. The Grapple Beam began to retract, dragging a very battered looking Chloe behind it. Her left arm dangled uselessly off to her side, obviously broken and she could barley see through her Suit's cracked visor. She needed to find Aster. If the Ing attacked her in her current condition she'd be easy pickings.

Aster herself had gotten off fairly easily, suffering only a few minor cuts and bruses from the attack. She emerged from her ice filled crater in time to see Chloe stumbling towards her. Aster immediately flew over to help.

"Chloe-chan! Are you all right?" the fae asked.

Chloe turned her head to face Aster, the Suit's joints creaking precariously as she did so. "My arm is broken, and I can't see through this damaged helmet piece. We need to cross over so I can take it off." she said grimly.

"That's is going to be difficult, Retsa sealed the portal inside a a tomb of rock."

Chloe sighed. "We'll just have to unseal it again. Point my Arm Cannon in the right direction for me, let's see if a Super Missle can release it."

Aster grabbed Chloe's right arm and turned until it was facing Retsa's tomb.

Chloe fired a Super Missle, impacting the rock pile and demolishing it. Inside the Light anomaly pulsated rhythmically as it blurred the dimensional gap between the two Aether's. Chloe switched her Arm Cannon to Light Beam mode and forced the portal open. Chloe and Aster stepped through.

* * *

Sparks flew across the room as Charis connected a pair of wires that obviously weren't meant to be connected.

"OUCH! I'll have this thing up and running if it's the last thing I do!" Charis shouted defiantly.

* * *

"Are you guys all right?" Chloe asked as she and Aster stepped through the portal.

"As well off as can be expected, what about you?" Jared asked.

In response Chloe deactivated her Power Suit and collapsed against the wall. Chevila, now in it's truck form, materialized next to her, the windshield was completely cracked and nearly impossible to see through.

"Chloe! What happened to you?" Jared asked as he rushed over to her.

"Retsa and Deraj. We need to get her back to the Library." Aster answered.

"No, I can still fight." Chloe insisted. "Just cut me a piece of one of Chevila's seat belts so I can fashion a sling."

"You're in no condition to fight, we're getting you out of here." Jared objected.

"We can't, the fandom's on lockdown. How'd you get out of this last time Jared?" Doug asked.

Jared stood up and looked at him, "I blew up the machine creating the lockdown and Plotholed into your lab. Unfortunately those lock out antenna are to far away for anything we use on them to be effective," he said grimly.

A door suddenly opened at the far side of the hatchery. Doug immidiatly aimed his pistol at it.

"Easy there, it's us!" Ben said, startled.

"Well, the gangs all here, so what do we do now?" Asked Drake.

Jared and Doug exchanged looks.

"We were planning on laying a trap, and now that we're all here we can engage them on more even terms, so if you'll all listen up I'll fill you in on the plan..."

* * *

"Is this it?" Asked Relyt as he stared at a door.

"Yes, the ACMSES agents are on the other side. Our job is to capture one of them, preferably Jared, does everybody know the plan?" Deraj asked.

"I don't." answered a random Uber Stu, Deraj answered by shooting him.

"We can afford no mistakes." He said as he reloaded his revolver.

"You really shouldn't shoot those, it's a waste of resources." Eolhc said.

"Don't worry, I have plenty of ammunition," Deraj said smugly. "Shall we go in?"

* * *

The doors to the hatchery opened and the PCMSPS entered.

"Alright people, here they come," Doug hissed into his communicator from his vantage point.

"Ah!" Relyt shouted as a metroid lunged towards him from inside it's cage.

"Don't wet yourself pansy, these metroids can't escape their cells," Retsa said coldly.

"Hey, come take a look at this!" Ekard shouted, "Jared must've left his hunk of junk parked over here."

Jared winced from his hiding spot. Jow dare they insult his truck, only his friends had the right to do that! He briefly considered jumping out of the shadows and giving Ekard a lesson in manners involving the Boomhammer before getting his temper back under control.

Deraj strolled over to inspect the truck.

"Ah, Chevila, such a quaint vehicle, the cannonization device must have failed when Chloe crossed over. Unfortnately for them, Aether doesn't have a vehicle friendly terrain. They must have left it behind. Jared shouldn't have been so careless about his truck, something might happen to it on such a dangerous planet..."

Jared knew what was going to happen next, he grimaced as Deraj drew his flashbar and smashed it into one Chevila's headlights. He felt his grip on the Boomhammer tighten.

"Yeah, a warp hound might decide to sharpen his claws on it!" Ekard said as he summoned his spear and used it to create a deep cut across the passenger side.

"This is not happening the way it's supposed to," Ben whispered to Tyler as they lay beneath a canvas in the back of Chevila.

"Yeah, who knew the evil organiztion would approve senseless destruction," Tyler answered sarcastically.

Retsa jointed in, hurling rocks all over the pickup, causing numerous dents.

This was not going according to plan, thought Doug. They were supposed to ignore the truck and follow the trail leading away from it into our pitfall, then Ben and Tyler would jump out and hit them from behind. The only thing that could make this go even more badly is if...

"I'll teach you not to mess with my truck! Boomhammer!" Came Jared's voice

"Of course," Doug murmured as he drew his weapon.

Ekard's vision was suddenly filled with stars as Jared's hammer came into contact with his helmet. Jared followed up the strike with a devestating a swing of the hammer that threw Ekard's legs out from underneath him. By the time Jared had finished and run off, he was only vaguely aware of the sound of an engine starting as Jared slid between his legs and hopped into Chevila's cab.

"Stop him!" Shouted Deraj as he summoned his missile trooper armor raised his missle launcher.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Shouted Ben as he sprung out of Chevila's bed.

"Oh crap!" Was all Deraj managed to say as the warhead impacted him.

"Chevila, don't fail me now!" Jared shouted as he put the truck in drive and hit the gas, Tyler and Ben both fell over from the force of the sudden acceleration.

"You won't get away!" Retsa shouted as she launched a massive fireball at the truck.

"Uh Jared, I think you should have yielded the right of way back there." Tyler muttered as he watched the approaching fireball.

"Where I come from, the vehicle with the biggest tires gets the right of way. I was simply following the rules of the road." Jared hastily replied as he pushed the pedal to the floor.

The trio passed under the rock pass Chloe, and Aster were hiding on. Once they pulled away it became apparent that they had some new passengers, courtesy of Aster's powers of flight.

"Do I always have to pull your pants out of the fire?" Chloe asked as she adjusted her makeshift sling fashioned from Chevila's passenger side seat belt. "Encahnto!"

A handfull of rubix cubes suddenly appeared in Chloe's hand. She brought her good arm back and flung the cubes at the fireballs, they exploded on contact and snuffed out the flame.

"Nice save," Tyler remarked, "But we have other problems."

Sure enough Deraj had apparently shaken off his initial encounter with one of Ben's nukes. Once he had regained his senses he had de-cannonized his car, which he, Retsa, Relyt, Eohlc and Ekard were now pursuing Chevila in.

"Gi gi gi, I just love a good hot pursuit!" Jared shouted.

"Duck!" Shouted Ben as Resta leaned out the window of the passenger door and began to launch bursts of fire and rock.

"Kyaa!" Aster yelled, firing blasts of ice and wind to counter the barrage.

"Hang on!"Jared said as he drifted around a tank of metroids.

* * *

"Well, so much for a well laid trap," Doug said as he and Drake ran after to two rapidly fading vehicles. "Now how am I supposed to catch up with them?"

That's when the Metroid tanks started breaking.

* * *

"They're gaining on us!" Ben shouted.

"I'm doing the best I can, Chevila was never built for speed, or power, or anything else for that matter!" Jared yelled in reply.

"Incoming!" Yelled Aster as she summond a wall of ice around the agents in the bed of the truck, a solid ball of earth impacted it a second later, sending rocks flying in every direction but towards the agents, including through the floor of the bed and into the undercarriage.

Jared looked at his dash just in time to see his gas gauge begin to dwindle.

"Dang it, that last blast hit my gas tank! I'm leaking fuel! I'm going to circle around and regroup with Doug and Drake, hang on!"

The agents in the bed scarcely had time to grab onto the sides of the truck before Jared cranked the wheel sharply to the right, the entire truck went up on two wheels as it swung around another Metroid tank. Jared winced as it leveled out with a bang.

"That can't be good on the suspension..."

* * *

"Die you freakin' flying parasite!" Doug shouted as he sliced a metroid in half, "There's no end to these things!"

Drake nodded grimly as he blasted a Metroid that had tried to dive at him.

"Then we can't stop either, keep fighting!"

Doug pulled out his pistol and began firing at a Metroid that was trying to flank him. The bullets made the thing shriek and flail, but didn't manage to dissuade it. He had to empty his entire clip before it finally died.

"Drake, cover me, I've got to reload!" Doug shouted before leaping behind a shattered Metroid tank.

"Slicing Gale!" Drake yelled, launching his boomerangs at a random Metroid. The Metroid dodged however and lunged at Drake. The surprised Agent couldn't react in time to evade the attack and the creature managed to latch onto his helmet. A cold numbness began to spread trough Drake's body as the Metroid began to drain his life force.

"C-C-Cold," he studdered, "Can't... breathe."

The metroid suddenly shrieked and died as Doug's sword was shoved through it's body.

"Thanks," Drake muttered, trying to ignore the Metroid goop-covered sword that was slightly penetrating his helmet.

"You can thank me later, those things are still coming!"

The empty Metroid tank behind Doug suddenly shattered as Chevila crashed through it.

"Did you miss us?" Jared shouted as the truck rolled to a stop.

"Jared, get us out of here!" Doug said as he and Drake jumped in the back.

Jared noticed the swarm of Metroids converging on truck.

"You'll get no argument from me!" Jared said as he hit the gas, the truck gave a sputter and died.

"Oh mierda!" Jared shouted, breaking into Spanish for emphasis, "I'm out of gas!"

A Metroid suddenly shot forward and slammed into Chevila's windshield. The glass cracked even more on impact. "All hands, this is the captain! Proceed to emergency escape pods!" Jared shouted as he threw his door open.

Chloe reached into the bed of the truck and grabbed Chevila's tire tool. It was along ways away from a blade, but it was going to have to work.

"We have to wrap this up quickly!" Tyler shouted, "Those PCMSPS agents are right behind us!"

A Metroid lunged at Tyler. Tyler ducked and the thing latched onto Doug.

"Gah, get this thing off of me!" He shouted.

"Let go of Doug-chan!" Aster shouted before she froze the metroid, Shirley lunged at it and smashed it in her jaws.

"Aster, keep freezing them! Metroids can't stand the ice!" Jared hollered.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Ben shouted, his attack was easily dodged by the agile Metroids however.

Aster took to the skies and began blasting Metroids, it wasn't long before the other Agents managed to destroy the frozen creatures.

"Well, that takes care of the Metroids, but what about the PCMSPS?" Drake asked.

Jared looked around, "They should have been here by now, did we lose them?"

"We're right here!" Retsa said as she flew into the clearing and began launching rocks.

Jared lifted his Boomhammer and swung it like a baseball bat. The rock it came into contact with shattered with a weak sounding "BOOM".

Great, now my hammer is starting to get fatigued, Jared thought to himself.

Aster shot into the sky after Retsa and swung her Moon Staff hard into her gut. Retsa made an indignant woofing sound and went down, although before she even hit the ground she was starting to recover. Doug and Ben ran to intercept her.

"So we meet again Tyler..." Relyt said as he rounded on Tyler and Drake.

"Are you ready to meet your superiors?" Ekard asked.

"Storm punch!"

"Hiyahh!"

Drake and Tyler lunged at their foes, both parried their blows and countered, Drake winced as Ekard's Drought Punch connected, Tyler simply made a comical prop noise as he was hit in the shoulder.

"So you're Chloe?" Eohlc asked as she drew two short swords. "Funny, I thought you'd be taller, are you ready to find out which of us is truely better?"

Chloe laughed, "How do you expect to find out which one of us is better if we aren't fighting on even terms? I'm fighting with a tire tool and a broken arm for crying out loud!"

Eolhc raised one eyebrow. "True, to beat you now would be an empty victory, so how about this..." Eohlc threw one of her swords at Chloe, who nimbly caught it in her good arm.

"As for your arm, I suppose we'll have to make do with this," Eohlc sheathed her sword and raised her right hand to her left shoulder. Chloe tried not to gasp at the fleshy sound of Eolhc dislocating her own arm.

"There, is that satisfactory?" Eohlc asked, wincing as she drew her sword and lunged.

Jared's hood slid across Chevila right as Deraj's flashbar came down, the blow missed and wound up putting a fresh dent in the side panel.

"Oh c'mon, I just painted that!" Jared objected as he lept off the other side of the truck.

Deraj did not reply, instead he just drew his revolver and fired, the bullet whizzed by Jared's ear as he dove beneath the truck.

"What's wrong? Aren't you going to try and hit me with your earth magic?" He said as he grabbed Jared by the ankle and dragged him out. Jared gracelessly flipped over and pulled some miniature mortar shells out of his pocket. Deraj was caught off guard when Jared threw them into his face. They stung a good deal and made Deraj let go of Jared's leg.

"Courtesy of the Little Plastic Green Beret!" Jared said as hit Deraj in the ankle with his Boomhammer.

Deraj winced as he stumbled back.

"So the dog still has some bite left after all. A pity. I was hoping this would be easy..."

Jared stood up and gripped his hammer, he was fairly sure he could take Deraj in a fair fight, but this fight was far from fair. His Earth magic was all but gone, and his Boomhammer was quickly burning through it's reserve of sonic energy, he needed to finish this fast or not at all.

Jared lunged at Deraj and attempted to land a right hook to his face but Deraj caught the blow and swung his leg out to meet Jared's. The less coordinated agent stumbled and fell.

"Fissure!"

One word was all it was, but it was enough to send Jared flying through the air, he landed with a thud.

"UUuggghhhh, cheap shot, that was a cheap shot..." Jared managed to moan as he struggled to his feet.

"You just don't give up, do you?" Deraj said as he began walking towards his counterpart.

Jared's mind began swimming, he needed to end this now, but he couldn't manage to string together a coherent thought, let alone a plan. He looked around and saw all of the agents struggling to fight their own individual battles, there was nobody to help him.

Jared gulped. He was going to have to throw everything he had at this guy. No plan, just power against power. He closed his eyes as he began to draw on his last remaining store of earth magic.

"C'mon now, you're done, just give up, you cannot win," Deraj taunted, loading his revolver.

Jared lifted the Boomhammer. He had tried using it against his foe, and it hadn't worked. He had tried using Earth magic, and it hadn't worked, but he hadn't tried both at the same time.

"Validus pango, attero meus hostilis! Pangea!" Jared shouted as he lifted the hammer above his head and slammed it into the ground.

Deraj's eyes widened as a shockwave tore through the ground heading right towards him, trailing a cloud of dust.

"Any chance that we could talk this out?" He asked right before he was hit by the combination earth, sound attack.

There was a mighty sonic boom that silenced those who heard it. Everybody looked to where Deraj had been, only to see a dust cloud rising ominously. Jared dropped his exhausted hammer, it faded away into nothing as the very energies that held it together were used up.

For a moment that seemed like an eternity, Jared just stood there, saying nothing. Everyone just watched him.

Except for one.

"You missed." Deraj hissed through a mouthful of cracked and broken teeth as he poped out of the ground behind Jared and pistol whipped him in the back of the head. Jared noiselessly feel to the ground, already unconscious. Deraj flung him over his shoulder and picked up a pair of car keys. Toytanya pulled up from around the corner and opened it's doors. Deraj quickly threw Jared in the backseat, got in and drove into a Plothole.

"Stop him!" Chloe shouted rushing after them, but it was too late. The Plothole had already closed.

"Package secure! We're done here. Everybody return to base!" Resta shouted as she opened up a Plothole.

The ACMSES briefly tried to attack the retreating agents. Only to be avoided and ignored as they disappeared into Plotholes.

"He's gone," Chloe cried, "They have him..."

* * *

I'd like to thank all of you for being patient, I know that this story is moving slow, but I assure you that it will be worth the wait.

Next chapter, the best of both worlds climax followed by the reveal of what sue storm actually is, hold tight folk, you won't want to miss it.

P.S. I'd also like to thank James Firebrand for betaing, thanks, see you next time.


	4. The man, the machine and the god

Author's Note: Here it is, the climax of my first multi-chapter fic, what will happen? How will Jared escape? Well, just read on and you shall see.

P.S. This story is my way of tipping my hat to several of my favorite and/or fitting society stories, so to my fellow society authors, you should consider it a compliment if you recognize some of your own stories in here.

* * *

Captain Crunch woke up inside a mound of the unconscious bodies of his fellow LPGB members. As an officer, his computer brain could override the automatic shutdown command if it deemed the situation was urgent enough, and apparently it had, although he didn't know why. Crunch blinked and looked around his surroundings, though of course this was merely for effect, as his plastic eyes were for aesthetic purposes only. His "vision" was actually generated by a tiny sonar beacon in his computer brain, that could fire off sonic bursts and time how long it took them to return, this effectively allowed him to see the room he was in as an objective 3D map. This helped him coordinate his battalion's manoeuvres and make sneak attacks all but impossible. It's range was limited however, and with no other LPGB soldiers active to widen his spectrum it was impossible to snyc images and get a detailed map of the room, but in the present situation it was better than nothing.

Crunch noticed that the room he was in looked suspiciously like a storage locker. Besides the inactive troops under his command, there was also a cache of weaponry placed in a neat pile. Unlike the soldiers themselves, these were not made of plastic, they were fully functional authentic weapons of war, built on a small enough scale that Crunch and his fellow troops could wield them effectively. Crunch helped himself to a standard issue rifle and six grenades, he briefly considered packing an RPG, but he realized the weapon was far too large and unwieldy to make it practical. He didn't even know where he was yet. He began walking to the other end of the cabinet, passing a guitar pick, a set of car keys, an iPod and some loose change. He instantly realized what all these items had in common – these were the objects in Admiral Jared's pockets. He had been captured by the enemy, and it was up to one solider behind enemy lines to save him. Crunch picked up a couple C4 charges and smiled. He almost felt sorry for them...

* * *

Insert society theme song here

* * *

"Is he plugged in?"

"Yep, Sue Storm has begun penetrating his mind. Once it reaches the area that controls his imagination we'll be ready to begin."

"Explain dis tu mee agin."

"Okay Cassandra. You see, Sue's have a set amount of power over a fandom, the amount of power depends on the Sue..."

"Yis, I understand dis, What does et 'ave to do with this?"

"Be patient. Sue Storm is a device that fires bursts of Sue energy all over the fandom. This makes a fandom more susceptible to manipulation. The effect is that the device can make even level one Sues strong enough to warp a fandom almost irreversibly."

"So what does that 'ave to do with Jared?"

"We are going to use him as our test subject. His imagination is the perfect medium to try to warp...that is if you are willing."

"E tried tu keel my seester, for that, I shall ennjoy breaking es mind very much."

* * *

Back on the planet Aether, a group of agents sat around trying to contemplate their next move. There was little they could do however, seeing as they were trapped in the fandom, unable to return to the Library and unable to pursue the PCMSPS, and every agent there had to use every ounce of self control to keep from screaming in frustration.

"So, do we have a plan here?" Tyler asked.

"Well, Chloe and Doug are working on fixing up Chevila, but I don't know what good it will do. Even if they get that clunker in working condition it's not like we have enough gasoline to get anywhere near that lockout antenna," Drake said.

"Whatever you do, don't say that to Chloe, she seems pretty upset. If she didn't have something to work on I think she might have a breakdown," Ben said, nodding grimly.

"Why don't I just fly ahead and take care of the antenna myself?" Aster asked.

"Out of the question!" yelled Doug as he slid out from beneath the truck. "This place is dangerous, and we have no idea what traps Deraj might have planted around that tower, and as long as I'm in charge here, I say we either go together, or not at all."

"What good does that do for Jared?!" Chloe shouted, slamming Chevila's hood down a little rougher than necessary.

"Look, there's nothing we can do for him right now. I'm sure the others are doing the best they can to find him, just try to stay calm," Doug said as he stood up.

"Easy for you to say!" She yelled as she rounded on him, "What is he to you!? Just a guy who put a hole in your wall? Would you even care if Deraj tortured him to death!?" Chloe began to step towards Doug.

Doug stood his ground. He knew Chloe didn't mean the things she was saying, and by saying anything he would only make the situation worse, so he just stood there and looked into Chloe eyes, unblinking.

"Answer me!" Chloe said as drew the sword she had taken from Eohlc.

Even Doug was surprised about what happened next. Chloe leapt at him, fully intending to run him through with her blade. Doug barely had time to draw and raise his own sword to counter.

Chloe sidestepped and lunged again. Once again Doug blocked and leapt back. Chloe charged after him and executed a jumping slash. Doug easily dodged this move, and once again fell back a few feet. Had they been seriously fighting Doug would almost have instantly taken Chloe down. The other agents didn't even know how to react to the situation. They just stared at the duo as horrified expressions crawled across their faces.

Doug took a step back and backed into one of the rock walls that formed Aether's landscape. Chloe lunged at him again, this time however Doug made no attempt to block and Chloe's blade sank into his shoulder with a dull hiss.

For a moment or two, nobody of them said anything. Doug was first to break the silence.

"Feeling better?"

Chloe let go of her sword and stepped back, "I'm sorry..." she muttered before sitting down on the ground and sobbing.

Doug pulled the sword out of his shoulder and dropped it on the ground next to Chloe. Then without saying a word he walked back over to Chevila and resumed the work that would restore it to functionality.

* * *

"Charis, what's your status?" Tash said over her communicator.

"I believe this large scale plothole generator does indeed have enough power to get us into the fandom. The problem is that Jared never designed this thing with two way travel in mind. I don't think it will be able to get us back. We'll have to destroy the lock-out before we can return..."

"Alright, I'll get a team ready."

"Tash, have you managed to track down Jared?"

"Yes and no. So far we've determined that Deraj's plothole crossed only time, not space. Meaning he's still in the Metroid fandom, the only question is where and when."

"Alright, keep me updated..."

* * *

Tash closed her communicator and looked around the room.

"Anything?" She asked Rhia, the agent on monitor duty.

"Negative, but I'm not giving up yet." Rhia said without looking away from the monitor which was cycling through footage of the metroid fandom looking for non-canon influence. She had just cycled through the NES and Gameboy releases, the footage was now showing the third game of the series, Super Metroid.

Tash left the room and began calling agents into the briefing room to form a rescue team. Five minutes later she was standing in front of Adrian, Kyle, and Cristoph, who began to gather their gear, ready to leave at a moment's notice.

* * *

Jared woke up in some sort of workshop, he was surrounded by strange machines and glowing lights, and it was impossible to guess their purposes just by looking at them. Jared didn't want to stick around and find out so, so he got up and sprinted towards the door. To his surprise it opened, it was not under guard of key.

"Oh Jared, where are you goeeng en such a 'urry?" Came a familiar voice.

Instinctively Jared reached for his Boomhammer, only to find out it wasn't there.

"Sandstorm!" He shouted, thrusting his hand towards the voice. He was expecting the floor to fly out from underneath him, followed by a powerful burst of sand, instead of the feeble wobbling he got instead.

"Your Earth majeek is gone little one, you 'ave no 'ope of esceeping..."

Cassandra suddenly appeared behind Jared and covered his eyes.

"Guess 'ho," She said, and suddenly all of Jared's worries and fears melted away, he felt a gentle breeze sweep through the air.

Cassandra pulled her hands away, at first Jared was blinded by the sudden light he was now seeing, but once the his eyes got used to it he noticed that he was on top of a building. A school by the looks of it.

He turned around and faced Cassandra, the first thing he noticed about her was that her hair was now green. The second thing he noticed was that her hands were now glowing.

Cassandra reached into her pocket and pulled at a hexagonal piece of metal.

"Ben's told me about those things, I think it's called a Kakugane..." Jared whispered to himself, "Obviously, she plans on using it on me, and I don't have anything I can fight with, wait... where did this banjo come from?"

Jared only briefly had time to briefly question the existence of the instrument that had materialized in his hand before a bow materialized in Cassandra's hands, she began to fire...

* * *

"What are you trying to do here exactly?" Eolhc asked, nursing her newly relocated arm as she and the other PCMSPS agents sat around a table watched the scene play out.

"Psychological experimentation," Deraj said, "I'm trying to break down his sense of identity by making him play out missions his friends went on in his head. If I succeed, we can shape him into someone who can be useful to us. If not we can always terminate him, it makes no difference to me."

"Alright, but was does this have to do with Sue Storm?" Relyt asked from across the room. "I thought it was designed to be used on fandoms, not people?"

"You don't understand..." Deraj began to say, "Sue Storm is a device that can draw creative energy from the Hall of the Persona, and then convert it directly into Sue Energy. In essence it can turn any characterization of any writer into pure Sueishness."

"Explain..." Relyt prompted.

"Fandoms themselves are created by writers. If suddenly the writers in charge are writing meaningless drivel due to the lack of creative energy, the fandoms begin to weaken. It gradually becomes less set in its ways and becomes more susceptible to manipulation. Eventually it gets to the point where even the weakest Sue finds it easy to bind characters to her whim."

"So what does this have to do with Jared?"

"I have placed that dim witted foil agent of mine in a catatonic state in the other room, and wired the Sue Storm machine directly into his imagination. Cassandra is in there with him, using Sue Storm as a threshold into his mind. If Sue Storm works, she'll be able to make Jared's mind construct any scene she wishes it to in our simulation. Now quiet, let's see how this plays out."

* * *

"Okay!" Doug said slamming Chevila's hood down. "She's done. I even made a few improvements Jared better thank me for when I rescue him. Now let's go take down that antenna."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Shirley said, "That truck doesn't have a drop of gas in it's tank, and unless your patient enough to wait for all of us to die and break down into fossil fuel ourselves, that truck ain't going anywhere."

"The stick has a point," Tyler said.

"Actually, she has many, and believe me I would know," Ben said before Shirley lunged at him.

Doug thought for a minute. He wasn't sure what they could accomplish with a truck that couldn't move.

"What if we went back into the mine and tried to harness that stuff the pirates were extracting?" Drake added.

"That's not a good idea..." Ben said as he grappled with his violent muse, "That 'stuff' is phazon, and it's extremely radioactive and unstable, it would kill us if we got near any without proper gear, and even if we did I don't think Chevila's equipped to run off of it. Besides, I'd hate to see what happened if that truck went into hyper mode..."

Suddenly a loud bang filled the air as a plothole tore across the sky, Cristoph, Kyle, Adrian and Charis suddenly passed through and began to fall, Aster quickly caught them in a sudden updraft, and they all settled gently to the ground. Charis looked sick.

"Uhooohhhhh, I don't think that thing was designed with humans in mind..." She said, holding her stomach and setting down a red container.

"Gas!" Doug shouted triumphantly.

"We noticed your predicament on the monitors. Charis found a couple of containers in Jared's lab. We thought that you might need it." Adrian said.

"Well, let's fill her up and hit the rode," Doug said. As he grabbed the can of gas and walked over to the side of the truck, he noticed the gas can's nozzle didn't quite fit the tank opening, but luckily Jared had a funnel in the back. He began to slowly empty the can into the truck.

"Alright!" Adrian yelled, "Everybody in the back of the truck. We move out as soon as Doug finishes refueling!"

All of the agents got in the back except for Chloe, who got into the cab on the passenger side. Adrian got in and took the wheel.

"I hope we aren't too late..." Ben said as he opened up his flask of firebrand whiskey.

"We will not be too late," Aster said, "Jared-kun can take care of himself. We can't underestimate him."

* * *

Jared let loose a rapid set of chords on Banjahamut. An almost invisible burst of sonic energy flew from the end of the banjo into the incoming arrows, and there was a loud boom that distorted the air around as the burst exploded and scattered the arrows.

"You don't have to do this, Cassandibella!" Jared called out as gunpowder wings burst from the back of the Sue as she took to the sky.

"You can come with me back to the Society, you wouldn't the only Sue we've taken in!" Jared said, dodging a fresh volley of arrows.

"You me Two-Step 'ula?" Cassandra said, lowering the bow.

"Yes, well we call him Fred now..."

"Forgeet et, I couldn't betray my own kind!" Cassandra yelled, igniting part of her wings. The flames tore through the sky at Jared, surrounding him with flames. Jared quickly began to play the chorus of duelling banjos, releasing another blast of sonic energy which pushed the flames back.

Jared kept firing burst after burst of sonic energy at Cassandra. She tried to avoid the bursts until one of them finally collided with one of her wings. The sonic burst blew apart the gun powder and Cassandra began to fall, somehow managing to scream and swear simultaneously. Cassandra immediately recovered and began to ready herself, only to find out that her Valkarie skirt had been driven into the roof from the force of her fall. Her eyes widened in shock as Jared casually started to point at her.

"Don't mess with nukes!" He shouted. Earth waves tore through the ground, upon impact the ground released a massive explosion, accompanied by a massive mushroom cloud of dirt. The dirt shockwave continued and knocked Jared down...

Suddenly a hail of arrows shot through the smoke. Jared barely had time to roll out of the way before he would have been skewered.

"Looks like I underestimated the Silver Skin." Jared mumbled,

"Quite, I em impressed by det weapon, what do you call et?"

"Banjahamut."

Cassandra's face assumed an expression of confusion. "Why, det doesn't mean anything..."

"You're saying this to the guy who named his truck "Chevila" you know?" Jared said, suddenly, he realized something was wrong, he shouldn't be having this fight, and he shouldn't be using a sonic powered super banjo either. "What it going on here?" Jared said, suddenly short of breath....

* * *

"We're losing, Cassandra, get your simulation back under your control!" Deraj's voice shouted over the intercom.

"I em trying, es mind es very strange tu me..." Cassandra complained, shifting her hands so that they covered more of Jared's temples, Jared himself was strapped down to a table, completely unconscious, wires and gadgets were connected at almost regular intervals along his forehead...

Unknown to anybody in the room, a tiny plastic man was working his way through the rafters, trying to think of a way to separate the Sue and the Admiral. His mind began to sort through the seemingly useless clutter in the room, searching for anything the little man could get his hands on, until eventually it discovered a lab coat by the wall. Captain Crunch quickly noticed a set of car keys lying in it's pocket.

"Perfect..." he said to himself.

* * *

Jared was slammed into the metal railing alongside the school's roof

"Ah! My ribs!" He shouted, clutching at his side.

Cassandra began to walk towards Jared. Just as she entered striking distance however she heard Jared give a painful shout of "-Computers!"

A somewhat floodgate looking rock burst out of the ground and tore through the roof.

"What es dis?" Cassandra shouted as the rock broke open and unleashed a literal mudslide. Jared searched the sea for his opponent, but he just couldn't see her. The flood began to recede, and to Jared's surprise he noticed that the landscape had become a stone maze of some kind.

Something isn't right, Jared thought to himself as he swished his tail...wait a minute...

* * *

Jared adjusted his flannel trench coat and proceeded deeper into the maze, but he was constantly interrupted by dead ends, turns and switch back, loops and narrow passageways. But this didn't matter. Jared was determined to catch up to the one responsible, and save Chloe, despite the fact it was obviously a trap. It didn't matter to him that all of his Little Plastic Green Beret had turned on him, forcing him to flee his lab. Fortunately he had managed to sabotage their trucks and helicopters before they could move out and chase him...

Something crunched behind him.

Instantly he brought his hammer up in a psedo-defensive position. Unfortunately whoever had made the sound simply grabbed the hammer, spun Jared around and kicked him in the gut, ending with a fancy flourish and a leap back.

"Aha-aha-aha! How do you like that, Techie?" Came a mocking voice, "I look forward to dancing on your grave!" Said Two-Step Hula, dressed in a ridiculous outfit Jared could only call ninja dancewear.

"Not on my watch!" Jared said, swinging his hammer at the Stu. Two-Step simply broke into a fast step not unlike Ben's, and the hammer swing went wide.

"You're in my way. I don't have time for this! Technician Specialist Art #1: A Thousand Classic Country Songs In An Instant!"

Jared flickered out of existence as the air around Two-Step was suddenly filled with the music of George Strait, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, accompanied by relentless hammer swings.

"Is that truly the best you can do?" Two-Step taunted as he danced around the hammer swings.

Two-Step suddenly threw his form onto the ground in a breakdance, as he began to spin one of his feet shot up and hit Jared on the nose.

"OW!" Jared said, scooting back and trying to staunch the blood flow.

"Your attack is useless! And so are you!" Two-Step shouted, beginning a victory dance.

"This fandom's energies are so wild and chaotic that my 'fifth sense' is next to useless here, which means I cannot use my Technician Arts to their full extent." Jared muttered.

* * *

Adrian pulled up alongside a giant antenna, once there he stopped the truck and killed the engine, all of the agents got out.

"So this is it then..." Chloe said, "We take this thing out, we can go after Jared."

"Yes, and more importantly, gain access to the PCMSES headquarters," came a voice.

The group quickly turned in their heads towards a black haired, shirtless man wearing bear skin shorts. More frightening than his attire however was the fact that over one of his shoulders was a largest longsword any of them had ever seen, easily half as long as the man was tall if not more.

"Oh, pardon me for not introducing myself!" Said the man, running a hand over the top of his head. "I am the thunder that comes in the night, I am the terror that strikes fear into the hearts of monsters, I am the master mariner that sailed with Posiden himself! I am Giddius, The Great Personae of Epic Poetry."

"Why would one of the beings in charge of recycling the Multiverse's creative energy be interested in rescuing an average techie from the hands of an evil organization?" Adrian prompted.

"Quite honestly, we're not. I'm more interested in what is going on aboard that ship. Someone there is corrupting the creative energy, and that is something we Personae cannot tolerate!"

And with that, the Personae let out a thunderous battle cry, he lifted his mighty sword and with one swing he levelled the entire antenna array. It toppled forward with a thunderous boom.

"Onward my comrades! Let us go with are heads held high! For tonight we might find ourselves washed up in the river stix!

And with that, Giddius snapped his fingers and the group simply vanished.

* * *

"Do you think I care about losing my fifth sense?!" Jared shouted, lifting up Hoshihammer, Two-Step screamed as the hammer made contact with his arm, making a fleshy crunching sound as it was broken.

Two-Step suddenly broke into a fast step once again as he began flipping away, soon disappearing down a trail.

Two-Step flipped around a corner, only to run right into Jared.

"If you plan on escaping using a dance move, you probably shouldn't wear taps, this canyon has excellent acoustics." Jared said, "By the way, you forgot this." At this Jared whipped out a copy of Elite Beat Agent for the Nintendo DS and flung it at the ridiculous Stu, the case landed a devastating blow to the Stu's head, dropping him like a rock.

"I'll give you choice. You can die from the shock of getting wounded by a joke item, or you can tell me where Chloe is and I'll leave you with what's left of your dignity."

Two-Step chewed his lip for a few seconds, "Alright. Go back to the crossroads and follow the widest path. It'll lead you to the girl." He slid his remaining hand into his shirt. "But don't think you'll get away unscathed!" He whipped out a remote control and pressed a button. Instantly, the walls around them started to hum, there was a sudden burst of light.

* * *

"Pass the popcorn!" Ekard said, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

"No, I don't want to share!" Deraj said, jerking the popcorn back.

"Grow up you two!" Retsa said, blasting Deraj out of his seat and grabbing the popcorn for herself.

Before Deraj could even hit the ground however, the whole ship lurched to one side, followed by an alarm siren.

"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" Shouted a random Uber Stu as he burst into the room, just before he was blown to pieces by a rocket propelled grenade.

"Nice shot Doug!" Tyler shouted as he leaped over the halfling and rolled into the room, "Lucy, I'm home!" He called out to Relyt as he began blasting the agents with random bursts of magic.

"NO! They'll ruin everything!" Deraj shouted, reaching into his holster for his revolver.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Kyle said, popping out of and air duct while forming his omni-weapon into a battle axe.

Deraj immediately let go of the revolver and grabbed his flashbar, he turned around just in time to block a fatal strike from Kyle, releasing a brilliant flash that happened to blind everybody in the room.

"Realitium might be a great material, but it just can't hold up to something that's a force of nature!" Deraj said, "Now, if you don't mind, I really need to kill you, subduc---" Resta quickly slapped her hand over Deraj's mouth before he could finish the earth spell.

"We're in outer space you fool! If you start blowing holes in the floor than pretty soon we'll be blown into space!" She shouted.

Doug took aim with his shotgun, making sure that Retsa was in his line of sight. Retsa was taking for granted the fact that every agent in the vicinity had been temporarily blinded, partially due to the fact Deraj hadn't bothered to inform her Doug had managed to steal one of his protective visors, which he had taken the precaution of putting on before storming into the room, thus, she was completely taken by surprise when Doug pulled the trigger.

"I'm hit!" She yelled, as a round of ammunition sunk into her backside, she was sent rolling over the floor from the impact of the shot. She barely managed to create a rock shield in time to block Doug's second shot.

"You'll pay for that!" She swore, before brushing the ammunition off of her kevlar vest, which she had secretly put on as part of her preparation in case the ACMSES actually did somehow manage to get aboard.

"Deadly impact!" Kyle cried, recovering his sight as he leapt at Relyt, the force of the impact sent the foil agent toppling over backward, he was unconscious before he even hit the ground. Unfortunately this also sent Kyle flying back with the recoil, fortunately he was able to land on his feet.

"Hey no fair! I wanted to do that!" Tyler shouted.

"Sorry, I was here first!" Kyle said, ducking underneath a blow from Ekard.

"Burn imperfectionists!" Retsa screamed, summoning a massive fireball.

Doug frantically began to reload his RPG, hoping to cause the blast to detonate before it could reach the trio of agents. Fortunately, he didn't have to...

"To those of you who would challenge the gods! I say thee nay!" Came a booming voice. Giddius suddenly burst through a hole in the ceiling and landed in the midst of the group and swatted Retsa's fireball aside with a swing of his sword.

"Back ye villains, I smite thee! Thou shant live to see the light of another day!" He shouted as he swung his long sword a second time, completely separating the upper and lower bodies of three different Uber Stus.

"Is this guy for real?" Kyle asked.

"He's a Personae, they're all at least a little bit kookey..." Tyler said, picking up the forgotten bucket of popcorn.

"Wasn't he was supposed to be with Adrian's group?" Doug said, "Not that I'm complaining mind you."

Giddius never once stopped his onslaught. He swung his mighty sword in a powerful sweep that actually managed to blow Ekard's armor right off of him. He then proceed to charge after Eohlc, who had secretly been battling Cristoph in the shadows in a contest those that were participating in the main battle hadn't even been able to tell was going on. Giddius managed to take her out in one punch, straight through her Spartan shield which shattered into countless pieces, leaving only Retsa and Deraj left. To Giddius' surprise, they were both grinning.

"We were expecting the Personae to get involved at some point, although I must admit I'm surprised it happened so soon. Fortunately we have prepared for this." Retsa said.

"I have no interest in the plans of the wicked! Make your peace, for my next blow will be your..."

Deraj suddenly drew his revolver and flipped a switch on it's side. There was a brief hum of energy as the entire gun began to glow a violent shade a purple. Before Giddius could react Deraj brought the gun to aim and fired. The bullet impacted Giddius in the chest before bursting apart into tiny fragments.

"Do you honestly think your mortal weapons can inflict harm on the mightiest of the Personae?! I defy you to ararrrrrggghhhh!"

Giddius suddenly dropped his sword, which proceeded to vanish into dust, as he clapped his hand to his bullet would. Purple lines began to spread all throughout Giddius' body from the bullet wound.

"What did you do to him!?" Doug shouted as he resumed reloading his RPG.

"The Personae are beings of creative energy. After I designed a way of corrupting that energy for use on fandoms, Retsa here developed a way to weaponize it for use against the Personae themselves. Giddius here is now experiencing a violent transformation of his entire body mass becoming Stu energy. Should he survive, he will make a fine Stu, someone our organization will deem worthy to protect."

Giddius made one final scream as he opened a plothole. Everyone gazed in horror as he leapt drunkenly into it, the hole sealed itself with a pop.

"A pity, I was hoping he'd stick around and make himself useful..." Deraj said to himself, pocketing his revolver.

"You bastard!" Kyle shouted, as he Tyler and Doug charged at the agents.

* * *

Adrian, Chloe, Ben, Aster and Drake continued fighting their way through the massive army of Uber Stus guarding the engine room in that were trying to stop their attempt at disabling the vessel. Although given the fact that their 'fighting' consisted in running over any Stu that got in there way with Chevila's off-roading tires there wasn't much actual action going on.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Shouted Ben, leaning out the window and pointing. The warhead Ben had summoned blew apart a thick metal door that had been blocking their path, giving Chloe the chance to hit the gas and accelerate into the main engineering section of the ship.

"Anyone know where that freaky hero guy went who was riding in the back with Aster, Charis and Adrian?" Drake asked as he bounced in the middle seat.

"I heard him say he was needed elsewhere, and then he just vanished." Adrian said, swinging his sword like a golf club at any Uber Stu that managed to avoid being smashed against the front of the truck.

"Do you think you could slow down a bit? I'm not feeling so good back here..." Charis shouted over the engine noise, still nauseas from her experience with Jared's plothole generator.

"We've got company!" Adrian shouted, noticing an approaching car, "but I can't quite make out the driver..."

"This is Captain Crunch of the LPGB calling Chevila with critical strategic information, please respond!" Came Crunch's voice over the radio.

Chloe was about to call back on the radio before she noticed the truck itself was responding, the radio suddenly flipped over revealing a computer read out, text began to scroll across the screen as Crunch began broadcasting his command codes.

_ Captain Crunch identified, requesting rendezvous..._

_ input: Y/N..._

"I can see the dashboard of the other car! It's got one of Jared's toy army men on it!" Adrian shouted,

"Haven't we dealt with those enough today?" Charis added.

Chloe reached over to Chevila's console and pressed the acceptance key, she was startled by the message she got in reply.

Rendezvous in progress, engaging brakes...

Everybody in the truck lurched forward as Chevila's tires locked, Aster was actually ejected from the back with a startled "Kyaa!", Fortunately her ability to fly enabled her to avoid slamming into the metal walkway. The truck swiftly skidded to a halt as Captain Crunch's stolen car pulled up alongside it.

The windshield on the car suddenly burst outward as Crunch detonated the C4 charges he had placed around it's perimeter.

"It was rather stupid of the enemy to use the same command frequency for his car as the Admiral's. It was relatively easy to take control, thank goodness I found all of you!" The tiny soilder stated as he saluted the agents.

"I know where the Admiral is being kept, you must come quickly!"

* * *

When the lights faded, Jared found himself in a giant stadium, surrounded by arena bleachers. Jared looked around and noticed Deraj slouched against some arena bleachers. Eolhc was standing right next to him, enjoying a massive bucket of popcorn. Osiris was standing in the middle of the arena, standing perfectly still, not even making a sound.

"Ah Jared, I'm glad you made it!" Deraj yelled," Welcome to the first test of Osiris version 2.0 beta!"

* * *

Deraj and Retsa battled the agents fiercely, managing to hold their own. No one there even noticed that Deraj's simulation was still being displayed on the computer monitor, up until the point a stray grenade from Doug's RPG made viewing the simulation impossible.

* * *

"Weapons online!" Droned Osiris in it's monotone computerized voice.

"Wow, it talks now," Jared gasped. "Just token techno babble, but it's an improvement over the silent, cyborg zombie of two chapters ago."

Osiris' right shoulder suddenly popped open and disassembled itself, reshaping into a particle cannon.

"Wardrobe Change!" Jared yelled as various car parts appeared, forming Jared's equivalent of Drake's armor, the helmet managed to take the shape of the cab of a pickup, it's appearance was quite ridiculous. Osiris fired his particle cannon, the crimson beam tore through the sky as Jared tried to leap out of it's path. The beam his the ground in the exact spot Jared had been standing and exploded. The force of the massive explosion sent Jared flying quite unexpectedly, causing him to almost get rolled off the edge of the arena into the electrified pit below.

Osiris leapt through the air and landed beside Jared, motor servers in his left arm whined as he threw a devastatingly powerful punch. Jared rolled away at the last second, and the punch wound up smashing the ground, not his head.

Jared summed his Boomspear with a burst of noise and swung it at Osiris, who merely caught it in his scarred left hand. Then using his brand new fully mechanical right hand he picked Jared up and flung him across the arena. Jared quickly leapt to his feet and pulled out two miniature Sherman tanks bearing the LPGB insignia, both began launching rockets at the cyborg.

Osiris began to walk towards Jared, ignoring the shells bouncing off of his armour as if they didn't exist, Jared quickly used up his supply of shells, and had to toss the tanks aside. Jared pulled out an miniature Cobra helicopter and began firing it's supply of anti-tank missiles. Osiris responded by transforming his mechanical hand from its new form back to its original napalm launcher, which he then used to spray a steady stream of flames to consume the missiles. Jared had to roll to avoid getting doused in the burning petroleum jelly.

Jared began to draw Earth magic from his surroundings and prepared to sling it at his foe. Osiris responded by activating his stealth camouflage. Jared tried in vain to track the movements of his near-invisible foe, but the smoke from the burning napalm made it impossible. Jared suddenly felt a cold mechanical hand grasp his neck.

"Looks like you and Sirahc worked out all the bugs..." Eolhc said.

"Theoretically yes, but keep in mind this is just a simulation. I mean, me and you aren't even real! We're just figments of my foil agent's delusional mind..."

Jared thrust his Boomspear at Osiris, who caught it with his human hand, Jared quickly switched which hand was holding the weapon and managed to cut a wicked slash in Osiris' face. Osiris computer brain whirred.

"Warning, damage to cranial region detected. Risk of damage to Computer-Brain-Barrier is possible. Increase distance between target immediately..."

Osiris dropped Jared and immediately raised his human hand towards him. Jared barley managed to duck in time as a high-calibre bullet was launched from his middle finger, only to blast a tiny hole in the wall behind him.

Jared thrust his hand forward and called on his earth magic, hoping he could score a hit, fortunately it did and sent Osiris flying, the sudden impact caused Osiris' circuits to briefly overload, giving Jared time for a breather. He sat down, put a hand to his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in the Library...

* * *

"Muffins..." Tyler said as he flew across the room, propelled by one of Retsa's rocks, he was slammed into a wall and slummed to the ground, for the second time that day he was unconscious.

"Tyler's down!" Doug called to Kyle, launching another rocket propelled grenade, only to have it detonated prematurely by one of Retsa's fireballs.

"I know!" Was the only reply Kyle could manage to muster as he slammed his omni-weapon warhammer down on the spot Deraj had been seconds before.

"Tut tut! Retsa isn't going to like you smashing up her ship, you better stop or she's going to get nasty!" Deraj snarked, slamming his flashbar into Kyle's jaw. Kyle turned his head and spat out blood before lunging at Deraj again.

Doug toppled the thick metal table that held the popcorn over to generate some form of cover, but every time he stuck his head up he'd immediately have to duck down to avoid getting struck by a combination of rock shards and fire.

"Mind if I join you?" Deraj asked, flipping over the table and landing beside Doug as one of Kyle's aurora grenades impacted the heavy metal object.

"Thanks, now if you don't mind..." Before Doug could react Deraj reached back and slammed his flashbar across his eyes, hard enough to shatter the protective visor he was wearing.

Doug drew his dagger and swung blindly towards the place where Deraj had been a moment earlier. The blade hit the table with a dull metallic clang, missing its intended mark.

"I'm beginning to really dislike this guy..." Doug said, before he was aware of his body being lifted into the air.

"My jacket!" Deraj yelled, flinging Doug out of the garment and over the table.

Doug tightened his grip on the RPG as he was flung into the air. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was turn an attack into a counter attack.

"Yippe Kiayeah!" Doug cried, aiming his RPG at where his memory told him Retsa was. It wouldn't be an exact shot without the use of his sight, but that was the beauty of grenades – you don't need to be precise to get a hit. He pulled the trigger.

"Gah!" Retsa's voice rewarded him as she was knocked unconscious by the explosion.

Doug landed quite gracefully, despite his temporary blindness. As he did so he could hear Kyle and Deraj's battle reach its climax.

I have you now!" Came Kyle's voice.

"You pathetic worm! Give me back my Flashbar!" Deraj yelled.

"Whatever you say!"

"Gah, my knee! Why I outta!"

There was the sound of a gunshot, for a second Doug feared the worse. But his vision suddenly refocused and he could see Deraj lying on the ground. As he drew his revolver Kyle had activated his accelerator and managed to grab Deraj by the wrist. Deraj panicked and pulled the trigger, which had the result of firing a bullet into his own leg. Deraj quickly began pleading with the agents.

"I surrender! I'll tell you everything! Just don't destroy my work!"

Doug grabbed Deraj by the collar and threw him against the wall. "Where's Jared!?"

"That way!" Deraj said, pointing towards a metal door.

Doug threw Deraj aside and he and Kyle raced for the door.

"What'd I miss?" Tyler asked, getting back up,

"Not much, just a fight to the death and a Personea going crazy..." Doug replied.

"Well, if it was only that..."

Kyle, Tyler and Doug's combined effort managed to unhinge the door almost instantly, at about the same time Chevila crashed through the opposite wall.

Adrian grabbed his sword and leapt across the room to join Doug and Kyle, the rest of the agents quickly spilled out of the truck and followed suite, effectively surrounding Cassandra, who just stood there, pouring Sue energy into Jared's temples. Cassandra's eyes darted around the room.

"You!" shouted Chloe. "I thought Aster and I killed you!"

"'Ou wish, I ejecteed from my suit and eesceeped. Unfortunately for you, you shall never come close tu det agin. Good bye!" Cassandra quickly let go of Jared and reached for the computer server behind her. Before any of the agents could stop her she had reached for the power knob on the outer casing and twisted it up to overload.

"Good bi." Cassandra said flatly, as the room was filled with a brilliant flash.

* * *

One chapter to go before this train reaches the end of the line, I'd like to thank Mei1105 for beta-ing, chapter 5 will be up real soon, and believe me, you won't want to miss it.


	5. Simply put, the end

The lights returned to a normal level, and Adrian could see that all of the other agents had fallen to the floor with dazed looks on their faces.

"Tey have been drawn into muy fanteseey world, Liebrian, your sixth sense 'as saved ou, but fortunately, I 'av something else for you!"

Adrian scarcely had time to react as a small rocket burst through the wall and hit the ground in front of him. Adrian picked up the unconscious forms of Drake and Doug and hurled them to safety. Time seemed to move in slow motion as the rocket's casing flew apart due to the explosion inside it expanding.

"Librarian Art 7: Mystery Vanish!" He yelled, throwing a smoke pellet to the ground.

The wall the missile came through suddenly collapsed as Osiris strode into the room; the ballistic missile launcher on his right arm was still smoking. Its computer brain immediately began processing its surroundings.

Ballistic missile count: two remaining...

Target has disappeared, engaging stealth camouflage and thermal/motion track.

Target has been found in the rafters, firing grapple.

Adrian was astonished that this THING could spot him without even looking. It simply raised its left arm and the whole hand shot off at the wrist to grab Adrian around the neck. Osiris gave the cable connecting his hand to the rest of his arm a mighty tug, and Adrian was suddenly flying through the air towards Chevila.

Adrian crashed through the windshield and out the back window of the pickup, receiving numerous cuts from the broken glass.

"I seem to have underestimated you..." Adrian coughed, getting up, and drawing Hoshikuzu to sever the cable that connected the hand around his throat to the arm it belonged to.

Osiris walked towards the pick-up truck, his computer brain whirring.

Target has entered engineering section, retracting grapple cable, disengaging stealth camouflage...

Recalling hand...

The hand around Arian's throat suddenly let go and began to crawl back to its owner.

"Isn't Bluetooth a wonderful thing?" Came a voice from Adrian's right. He turned in time to see Sirahc and Hpotsirc approaching from another one of the engineering section's walkways. Sirahc appeared to be carrying a macbook with her, which was prompting her to enter a command.

"This program I wrote for Deraj is wonderful. I just type in whatever I want the Osiris unit to do, and it's added to his list of objectives. Watch!" Sirahc began to type. "K-I-L-L A-D-R-I-A-N!" Osiris picked up his hand and reconnected it with a fluid-like motion, and then without a pause he lifted Chevila without the slightest show of effort and hurled it at the Librarian.

Tools, spare parts and gadgets shot out of the bed like shrapnel as Chevila followed its drunken flight course through the air.

Adrian leapt to the side as the truck slammed into the ground beside him, landing on its side and skidding.

Adrain twisted around just in time to block a strike from Hpotsirc.

"Librarian Art 2: A Thousand Words in an Instant!" Adrian yelled, vanishing into a flurry of sword strokes. Hpotsirc managed to block some of the strikes, but the sheer volume of the attack made it impossible to block even a significant fraction of them.

"You'll pay for that!" Hpotsirc said, nursing numerous wounds where Adrian's attack had penetrated his armour.

Adrian noticed a thick metal cable next to Hpotsirc that was probably used for maintenance; Adrian quickly scooped it up and tied it into a loop. Hpotsirc lunged at him, Adrian sidestepped and slipped the loop over him, and he let it slide to the ankles before yanking it tight.

"Woah!" Hpotsirc yelled, as he toppled over.

"I don't have time for you; you're just a secondary concern," Adrian said, lifting Hpotsirc over his head and flinging him over the rail.

Hpotsirc's whole life flashed before his eyes as he fell towards the bottom of the engineering section; that is, before the maintenance cable went taut. He called out in pain as the force of the sudden stop pulled one of his ankles out of its socket, but at least he was alive.

Adrian had only a few seconds to mentally celebrate his victory before he was instantly hit in the back by a volley of burning napalm.

"There goes another trench coat..." He said, whipping the burning garment off. Instead of simply casting it aside, he ran Hoshikuzu through it. A significant amount of Napalm smeared off the trench coat and onto the blade. Crystal gleamed as the light from the fire reflected off of it.

Adrian waved his flaming sword at Osiris as he cast the burning trench coat over the edge of the walkway.

"Ready for round two?"

* * *

"Where are we?" Asked Aster, walking through rows and rows of work benches.

"This is the main lab of the Library's Science Hall," Charis answered, "But how did we get here?"

"You're not!" Came a booming voice.

Ben winced, "I know that voice, please no..."

"Hello Ben!" Shouted Fred, the Great Persona of Crack, "And goodbye!" He said, pointing at the group. His moustache configured itself into a wicked zigzag as a tidal wave of potatoes surged forth towards them.

"My coffee makers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!" Ben shouted, extending his arm.

Coffee met potatoes in a brilliant collision, but in the end the potatoes won out and forced the coffee back. The agents were instantly swept under by a wave of soggy potatoes.

"Why is Fred trying to kill us?" Ben said, poking his head out of the pile.

"E's not!" Came a purring voice, "I em pulling emajes from Jared's 'ead, if you wish to save 'im, ou must defeat them. Good luck!"

"For a second there, I thought maybe Fred was the kind to hold a grudge!" Tyler said, surfacing by Ben.

"How do you know Fred?" Ben asked.

"I beat him in an eating contest once..." Tyler responded.

"Seriously?"

"How do you think he got to be 800 pounds?"

"Duck!" Cristoph shouted, popping out and dragging Ben and Tyler back into the potatoes as blue energy bolts tore across the sky.

"What was that?" Aster asked, as the agents dug their way out the other side of the potato mound.

"That would be Chevila from the time she canonized into a transformer," Chloe promptly answered, drawing her sword.

Chloe's statement was confirmed as the group heard the sound of shifting metal and burning rubber.

"I'll take care of this!" Aster proclaimed as the truck came in sight. She placed her hand on the ground and covered it with a layer of ice. As Chevila's tires lost their grip and the truck began to lose control, Doug took aim with his RPG and fired a shot into the truck's undercarriage. The grenade ignited the gas tank and Chevila was blown into the air as a piece of flaming wreckage.

"Incoming mortar fire!" Kyle shouted. The agents took cover once again in the mashed potatoes as the incoming explosive harmlessly burst outside of its effective range.

"Fire at will!" Came the voice of a now life-sized General Idea. The super-sized LPGB raised their rifles and began firing bursts of ammunition into the potatoes, but Aster quickly summoned a barrier of ice to absorb the shots.

"Eat Big Lipped Alligator Moment!" Charis yelled, pulling out the BLAM contraption and firing.

The Large Plastic Green Beret suddenly found themselves by the pool of a giant Barbie Dreamhouse, where they immediately began dancing and partying with all of the Barbies occupying the vicinity.

"That is wrong on soooo many levels..." Drake said, averting his stare.

"It was the only thing I had that was sure to stop them," Charis said, holstering the BLAM.

"The BLAM only lasts a few moments, Ben, get ready to nuke them!" Tyler said, watching with sick fascination as General Idea and Ken got into a drunken brawl over Barbie.

The scene faded away and the LPGB once again drew their weapons, only to be blown away by several of Ben's nukes.

"Aren't we forgetting someone?" Doug said, as he began reloading his RPG, only to realize he had used up all of his grenades.

"Yes indeed!" Came Fred's booming voice. The agents turned to look back at him.

The Persona's moustache turned into the shape of a frown as he crossed his arms. "Stop staring at my enormous man-boobs! My eyes are up here!" He said, before charging at the group, causing the entire floor to shake with every step.

"All in favour of a scene transition?" Tyler asked, activating the device.

* * *

Five Uber Stus lunged at Adrian; one sweep of his blazing sword took care of them.

"Napalm is truly dangerous stuff, you know, you shouldn't use it if you don't want it to be used against you too!" Adrian said as the Stus faded away into nothing.

Osiris stood perfectly still, with his camera eyes taking in every tiny detail about his opponent with perfect clarity.

Napalm levels: 47% and falling

Society Agent Adrian does not appear to be weakening, use of mini-gun recommended.

Mini-gun failure: Mini-gun has been removed as of version 2.0, engage stealth camouflage...

Adrian went tense as Osiris faded from sight. With all of the smoke filling the walkways, Osiris was effectively invisible. He didn't know what to do, until he spotted Chevila.

"Let's hope this thing still runs!" He said, ramming into it and pushing it back onto its wheels.

Adrian glanced around nervously as he opened the door and turned the key in the ignition, but the truck did start with a weak grumble.

"How do you turn on the headlights for this thing? Oh yeah." Adrian said, clapping. Chevila's sole remaining headlight came on with a weak flutter. Adrian flipped it to its brightest setting and began to burnout, weaving the truck in a tight circle. The headlight's beam traced its way along the far wall of the engineering section as he spun the truck around, until it came to a point where the light couldn't seem to make it all the way to the wall. Fixing itself on something much closer instead, the light was wavy and rippled, as if it were being bent around an object.

"There you are!" Adrian smirked as he put on the truck's parking brake. "Boot to the head!"

Adrian vanished from the driver's seat right as Osiris' finger gun blew away what little was left of the windshield of the truck. Appearing right above the shimmering mass of light, "SCHWOOSH-FWUMP!" Adrian's boot made contact, and Osiris jolted suddenly back into the visible spectrum, with an enormous boot print across his distorted face.

Adrian swung his blazing sword next, and it cut clean through Osiris' mechanical arm as if it were made of paper. The flaming blade ignited Osiris' store of napalm causing a fire to begin burning inside its body. Flames ran freely from the wound like blood.

Osiris' head swam with a flood of data. Adrian's attack had obviously caused damage to one of its primary circuits.

I AM ERROR, I AM ERROR

CRITICAL DAMAGE TO CENTRAL PROCESSING NODE, REROUTE COMMAND CIRCUITRY

REROUTE IN PROGRESS, PLEASE WAIT...

DAMAGE REPORT: BALLISTIC MISSILE MALFUNCTION, MISSLE SPARKING HAS COMMENCED

STEALTH CAMOUFLAGE OFFLINE,

FINGER GUN, OFFLINE

NAPALM LAUNCER, PARTIALLY FUNCTIONAL

PARTICLE CANNON, LOW POWER ONLY

REROUTE FAILURE, CIRCUIT OVERLOAD, PREPARING AUTO-DESTRUCT

MISSILE SHUTDOWN FAILED, COMMENCING FIRING!

"So, you don't like head shots, do you?" Adrian asked rhetorically as Osiris lurched about chaotically.

Osiris flailed its arm spastically as two missiles launched and made their way towards Adrian.

"Librarian Art 6: Shield of Silence" Adrian said, causing both missiles to explode harmlessly against his invisible barrier.

AUTO-DESTRUCT CANCELED HAS BEEN CANCELED

WARNING: ALIEN PROGRAM PRESENT, UNABLE TO BLOCK ACCESS TO CONTROL SUBROUTINES. PREPARING ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM.

"Mxbrtexblydisbrgth!" Osiris stuttered, through failing overloaded speakers.

"I didn't quite catch that." Adrian said, raising his sword for a killing strike.

"I said, you smell like death! As one who has experienced it, I would know." Neb's voice said, as his particle cannon activated and fired.

Adrian was blown back. The particle cannon had taken him completely by surprise, and he skidded to a halt on his back, wounded and bleeding twenty feet away.

"Remember the Alamo!" Came a voice as Captain Crunch leapt down from the rafters and landed in Osiris' hair.

"Get out of there!" Osiris commanded, once again in Neb's voice as it tried to get its damaged joints to respond.

Captain Crunch pulled out his knife and slashed away several locks of hair. Underneath, there was a tiny layer of metal labelled "EXTERNAL MEMORY ACCESS: DO NOT REMOVE" in all red letters.

"This looks important!" Crunch said, placing a LPGB-sized C4 charge and jumping off. Halfway to the ground he pulled his parachute cord, and a miniature parachute sprung from his pack as he descended to the ground.

"I've got you now!" Osiris said, rounding on the little man.

"No, I've got you!" Crunch said, pulling out his detonator and pressing the button.

A little burst of flame shot out from the back of Osiris' head; the figure lurched, twisted, and fell to the floor in a puddle of burning napalm.

"Woah, it's gonna take them quite a while to stitch that guy up!" Crunch commented as he landed on the ground a safe distance away.

* * *

"Come out, little people! Fred just wants to play a game with you!" The simulated Fred shouted, as he waddled around the lab.

"That's supposed to make us want to come down?" Tyler asked, as he and the other agents manoeuvred around the rafters Aster had flown them up into.

Doug sat opposite of Tyler, aiming a sniper rifle.

"Don't bother, Doug, you're just going to make him angry," Ben warned.

"We'll see about that!"

Doug pulled the trigger. The bullet flew from the sniper, spinning towards Fred, and hit him in the backside where it sank into one of his many folds of fat, never to be seen again.

Fred spun around and looked in the direction the bullet came from, starting to point and chant.

"Run!" Ben said, sprinting from rafter to rafter.

"Why?" Doug asked.

"Fred taught me to control and use everything I know! That means he can do it too! But far better!" Ben yelled, grabbing a chain and using it to swing across the gap, before hurling it back to Charis.

Doug shouldered the rifle and sprang after the rest of the agents, but not before hearing the distinctive shout:

"MY nukes mess with YOU!" Fred shouted. A giant coconut appeared in the midst of the group in the rafters, with the symbol for radiation hazard painted on it.

The coconut nuke exploded, forcing the metal beams of the rafters outward, some of them even beginning to fall. The agents were splattered with coconut milk and thrown from the beams, falling too.

Doug managed to use his left hand to grab one of the beams as he fell, and with his right hand he un-holstered his sniper rifle and grabbed it by the barrel; Chloe managed to grab hold of it as she fell; Tyler and Ben each managed to grab onto one of her legs. Aster managed to catch Charis; Drake, Cristoph and Kyle didn't need catching because they had managed to stay on the beams despite the explosion.

"Charis, BLAM this guy, we need something to distract him while me, Cristoph and Kyle pull Doug and the rest up!" Drake yelled.

"No can do, BLAMs can't be used more than once!" Charis yelled, as Aster flew to one side to avoid being hit by a falling stack of mashed potatoes.

"Hey, Cristoph, I have an idea! Get down here and get my copyright darts!" Doug shouted. "Hurry, I'm slipping!"

The whole beam shifted and Doug struggled to keep a grip on both the agents and the beam.

Cristoph leapt off of the beam, twisting around to let Kyle grab onto his feet, while he reached into Doug's holster and pulled out his gun. He began loading the darts.

"What do you want me to do with this, Sir Doug?" Cristoph asked.

"Shoot Fred!"

"Sir Doug, I am not trained in the use of firearms!"

"Toss it up to Drake then!"

Cristoph tossed the gun; Drake caught it, took aim and fired.

The dart struck Fred in the stomach causing the false persona to look at it quizzically.

"What's this?" He asked before vanishing in a puff of smoke. The copyright dart clattered to the ground.

At the same time, the beam gave way.

"This is it," Ben thought, "Even the fast step can't save me from falling."

"This is gonna hurt!" Doug yelled, figuring the fall might not kill him, but it would probably break every bone in his body.

SPLAT! The agents landed in a pile of mashed potatoes.

"I don't know whether to be thankful or disgusted," Kyle said, digging himself out of the potatoes.

"Goofph!" Tyler shouted through a mouthful of the coffee-soaked side dish.

"What happened?" Aster asked, lowering Charis to the ground.

"That wasn't the real Fred," Doug explained. "He's Jared's thoughts twisted by a Sue, so by copyrighting him I untwisted him. He ceased to exist the second he was copyrighted."

"Well, now that's taken care of, let's go find Jared!" Chloe shouted, wiping potato matter off of herself.

"I'm already here!" Jared announced. All of the agents turned to face him.

* * *

"Sir Adrian! Are you alright?" Captain Crunch asked as ran up to Adrian.

"I'm fine, really," Adrian said, standing up. There was a nasty burn on his chest where the particle beam had torn through his chest; he would need to visit the infirmary when they returned to the Library.

Adrian picked up his sword. The napalm had begun to burn down, but on the whole the sword was still very much alight along the length of its blade.

Sirahc took off running. Adrian briefly considered pursuit, but capturing Sirahc was not why he was there; he was on a rescue mission. Anything beyond rescuing the Sue Storm-affected agents was a secondary objective.

Adrian turned back towards Deraj's lab, and Captain Crunch scarcely had time to grab onto his tail as he ran by.

"Wait a minute here! I don't run as fast as you do!"

As Adrian sprinted off, Captain Crunch adjusted his grip just in time to see a group of Uber Stus carrying fire extinguishers try and put out the fire that was the mechanical corpse of Osiris.

* * *

"NO! NO! NO!" Cassandra shouted, as the room lit up in a flash. "You can't have beaten my fantasy!"

"It's over Cassandra, give it up!" Jared shouted, waking up and completely pulling off the restraints that held him to the table.

Cassandra's hands began to glow.

"Don't try it!" Adrian yelled, hurling his flaming sword into the room. The blade caught the sleeve of the Sue's shirt and pinned her to the wall. It was pure Sueishness that kept her shirt from burning.

Kyle ran over to the Sue and prohibited her, but to his surprise she began sobbing.

"I suppose you're quite pleased with yourself!" She hissed venomously, in what was obviously an American accent.

Jared's jaw dropped. "Come again?" He asked, not sure he had heard the Sue correctly.

"You heard me!" Cassandra shrieked, again with the same accent.

"Cassandra! Your accent!" Chloe couldn't help but shout.

"I admit it!" She shouted, beginning to sob again. "I'm not actually French! I just adopted that accent to make myself sound more 'ulluring!" She tried to say the last word of her sentence with the usual accent, but failed miserably, which caused further fits of sobbing.

"Uh, is not being French the worst thing in the world? I don't see why you're so upset." Aster asked. Cassandra just wailed more loudly.

"I don't want to live anymore!" Cassandra shouted, elbowing Kyle in the groin and turning around to face the Sue Storm machine. She reached out, grabbed the power meter, and twisted it to a setting labelled: "Up To Eleven".

Sparks began flying from the machine, parts started flying off in random bursts, and the whole ship started shaking.

"What have you done?" Deraj said, limping into the room just as several alarms started going off.

"The whole ship's going down! We need to get out of here!" Adrian shouted, grabbing Cassandra and running back into the engineering section.

"Stop! You'll pay for what you've done!" Deraj shouted, struggling to limp after the fleeing agents. Jared felt a bullet whiz past his head and sparks burst along the wall as Deraj desperately tried to stop the agents from escaping.

"Ah, faithful Chevila, still running after all you've been through." Jared said affectionately, brushing glass off of his seat as he got in the cab.

"To be quite honest, I'm surprised this truck is this intact!" Chloe said, hopping in through the passenger door.

"Hurry up back there!" Jared yelled out the window as the other agents struggled to catch up.

"Easy for you to say, you aren't trying to handle a suicidal formerly-French Sue!" Drake yelled, stopping Cassandra from once again hurling herself over the edge of the walkway. "Seriously, all this fuss over an accent..."

Eventually, once all of the agents and the prohibited Sue had gotten into the truck, Jared shifted into drive and fired up the plothole generator. The next thing the agents knew, they were back at the Library...

* * *

Epilogue...

"Well, Chloe, it looks like I'm out four windows, several coats of paint, numerous dents and impacts, 24 LPGB soldiers and one Boomhammer. But at least I got the Sue; would you still count this mission as a success?" Jared asked, surveying his truck.

"Well, everything you lost can be replaced, but I'm not sure what you mean by saying YOU got the Sue. All you did was get captured and hallucinate actually going on missions and doing work," Chloe joked. "Speaking of which, have you recovered from whatever Cassandra did to you?"

Jared frowned. "In all honesty, no. I keep having flashback of memories that aren't mine. Some of them might even be Cassandra's, to be honest; it's awfully hard to distinguish memory from reality sometimes."

Chloe rubbed Jared on the back. "Well, we're all here for you. We'll help in whatever way we can. I'll tell you what, I'll get started working on Chevila. You go get some rest. You hear?"

"Seriously?" Jared asked, looking up. "You'd do that?"

"Yes, I would. Jared, I'm your partner. If you can't rely I me then what good am I?"

"Thanks Chloe, I appreciate that. First I'll go put in my shift in monitor duty, and then I'll go lie down for a few hours. I owe you one."

Jared got up and left, but Chloe noticed that he seemed to be slightly willy-nilly; he kept zig-zagging pointlessly as he walked down the science hall. He was also whistling the tune of some song that seemed too heavy to match his usual motif of country classics. Chloe was worried about him.

* * *

Jared was having a hard time keeping focused at the monitor station and Dave was muttering in his pockets about looking for a mint. Jared was about to ask if he could have one before he was cut off by a beeping from the monitor, and the realization that he actually hated mints.

"Which fandom?" Tash asked.

"Hard to tell, the fan base is kind of small..." Dave added.

"Let me try," Jared said, humming the Canadian national anthem as he began typing on the keyboard. Dave and Tash exchanged looks; Jared was acting strange, even for Jared.

"What the hell is Bonekickers?" Jared asked, suddenly blushing over the fact he had just sworn casually, something he always avoided.

The conversation about the fandom went on for a minute or two as Dave described the fandom.

"Looks like we get some action after all!" Jared said, despite the fact he really didn't feel like going on a mission at the moment.

"If the main characters are Archaeologists, then they'll notice disturbances caused by earth magic, and you won't be able to get close enough to use the Boomhammer without losing a limb." Tash said. Jared didn't bother reminding her that he was short one Boomhammer at the moment.

* * *

Jared tried helping monitor the mission as best as he could, but he kept losing focus. Tash eventually relieved him of duty and sent him away.

"I need a vacation," Jared admitted at last, before going off to fetch his suitcase.

"Are you going somewhere?" Chloe asked, walking into Jared's room and catching him in the act of packing.

"I'm leaving the society, not permanently. But long enough..." Jared said, throwing his Klingon dictionary into the suitcase.

"Where are you going?" Chloe asked.

"The Star Trek fandom, planet Vulcan specifically. If anybody can help speed up my recovery, it's them. Plus they have some excellent scientific equipment I'd love to play around with. Maybe I'll even construct a model II Boomhammer while I'm there."

"Well, one thing's for sure; if you're going, I'm going!"

"Chloe, you don't have to do that..."

"Jared, you can barely think straight, you don't speak the language, and I doubt you'll be able to survive on your own cooking ability. You'll be dead in a week if I don't come along. I'm not sure if you've even thought this through; Tash told me how you were acting in the monitor room..."

"That's precisely why I'm leaving. I'm in no condition to go on any missions and I'll just be getting in the way if I stay here."

"Very well, get your bags; we leave as soon as we're packed."

* * *

"Admiral, you aren't seriously leaving us..." General Idea asked.

"Yes, General, but it's just for a little bit. Do you promise me you'll behave while I'm gone."

Idea looked confused. "When have we ever misbehaved?" He asked, making Chloe snort.

"And another thing," Jared continued. "No leaving the lab!"

"But General, Nazi and Communist forces are at work in the Library, surely we must be allowed to..."

"You have your orders, General!"

"I... ah...very well, sir..." General Idea saluted Jared, and Jared saluted the General in return. He then turned around and made his way to the door, pulling a switch on the wall on his way out.

For the first time since he'd joined the Society, the lights in Jared's lab when out one by one. The rows of lights all shut off until the room was perfectly black and still. Jared turned and cast another look into the room.

"Having second thoughts?" Chloe asked.

"No. This is the right thing to do, but I'll still miss it. Now come on, we have some goodbyes we have to say..."

Jared walked back in the commons, where he was bombarded by balloons and confetti. Word had gotten around that he was leaving, so everybody had organized a combination going away/get well soon party in his and Chloe's honour.

"What's all this?" Jared shouted in surprise.

"It's just a little gift for our favourite redneck," Karissa said, tossing Jared a box that contained Johnny Cash's complete discography. He just about cried.

Jared was having quite a time at the party, except for the music they were playing. Nobody present at the party liked country music, so they hadn't been able to provide any on such short notice, but Jared noticed that there was a guitar in the corner.

"Go ahead!" Chloe said. "You know you want to."

"Alright," Jared said, picking up the guitar and walking up to the stage. Chloe herself unplugged the speakers.

"I'd like to thank you all for doing this for me; I want you all to know that I will be back. I just need some time away to collect myself. If you need to contact me, I will have my communicator. Now before I go I'd like to play you all a song; I've gotten many requests, but screw you all, I'm going to play anyway."

And with that, Jared struck a few chords on the guitar and began to sing:

"I knew the stakes were high right from the start.  
When she dealt the cards, I dealt my heart.  
Now I just found a game that I can't play,  
And this is where the cowboy rides away. "

* * *

The PCMSPS spacecraft performed an emergency landing on the planet Norian in order to begin engine repairs, and deep within the engine rooms Deraj and Retsa were in the middle of a discussion.

"That Sue trashed your Sue Storm device. Your experiment was a failure, Deraj..."

"Not so, Retsa, we found out it worked didn't it? Now the real fun begins..."

"What are you planning on doing now?"

"Cassandra only destroyed the prototype. The real Sue Storm device is currently in the planning stages..."

"When will it be ready?"

"Soon, Retsa, soon."

-------------

The end. I hoped you enjoyed this, it's been a blast to write! My thanks go out to Complexities for betaing. Don't worry, Jared and Chloe will return, and just imagine the shock they're going to experience when they return to a Library that has been invaded and destroyed. Look for it in Insert Homecoming King of Monsters Here.

(BTW, I'd like to claim Marvel Comics adaptation of Godzilla for my next story.)


End file.
